


The Ninth Muse

by magicbunni



Series: The Baker Street Series [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Crime Fighting, Drama, Gen, Mystery, non-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicbunni/pseuds/magicbunni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: <b>The Ninth Muse</b><br/>Status: Complete<br/>Words: 120 pages<br/>Rating: G<br/>Warnings: No Warnings - No slash - Nothing Explicit</p><p>Summary:  This is a complete BBC Sherlock fan-fiction. Conspiracy and murder find Sherlock Holmes and John Watson surrounded by covert enemies in the heart of Scotland Yard. Together, they unearth clues that illuminate the scope, depth, and distorted psychology behind the crime. And, after a preemptive strike ordered by the mastermind they pursue, Holmes elects to continue the investigation under conditions that will force John Watson to fight for his <i>friend's</i> -- <i>colleague's</i> -- life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ninth Muse

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# The Ninth Muse

  


Cover Art - [nero749.deviantArt.com](http://nero749.deviantArt.com) | Story – [magicbunni.deviantArt.com](http://magicbunni.deviantArt.com)

 

Sherlock’ s notes were as likely to be full of commentary on the inanity of today’s news anchors and his personal preferences regarding soy sauce and grammar than any blasts of genius, most people didn’t get that about him. But John Watson did. This infernal storm of papers all over the room is exactly what happened when you noticed everything. Genius was an untidy affair.

Holmes records meandered like a forsaken cow abandoned in the desert, from ‘There were clear signs of formalin in the divots of the bowling ball – faintly detectable to the nose – enough to prove the client was lying; he had been in the University that night’, to ‘We are out of yogurt; who is responsible for this?’, although that last one, John felt a super-sleuth should have known.

He shuffled Sherlock’s papers.

More papers fell out.

John was the only one of them inclined to any kind of tidying. Tidying was inescapable. Eventually, John would have Sarah over, and he would have to clean the dishes and pots, do the laundry and folding, vacuum the carpets and find the tables again, under all these trees. He put the papers down in something resembling a pile and rubbed his face. Hands on his hips he stared around the room. Not bad. It was daunting he could say that, having been in the military, but a better kind of daunting.

Vaguely, John wished for a time when Sherlock brought some woman here. Then the tables would turn. John would stack dirty plates, leave clothes in piles, create towers of books with glassware on top, run cables from everywhere, even the light sockets, and nearly short-out the block with all the chargers in sockets in his flatmate’s room. Or… on the other hand… that sounded perfectly dreadful. And he’d have to clean it up, wouldn’t he? John smiled. Not to mention the fact he’d possibly suffer coronary distress from the shock. Sherlock and a woman? God, he was enough trouble already. Please, not that.

This led him to ponder the kind of woman Sherlock would find acceptable.

Most of the options that raced to mind were electrical.

God help me. John sighed a cloud of dust. That thinking wasn’t charitable of him. Sherlock had said women ‘weren’t his area’? Well fine. Fine, even if he liked men. When it came to Sherlock, the gender was immaterial. The point John’s ‘well-meaning but inattentive’ mind made was that it was a matter of human biology, human psychology. Holmes had a towering IQ. That burning engine of biology between his ears untangled the world. But he rattled around in a state of wayward ignorance concerning the biological support system sustaining it, not eating, not sleeping, slapping on nicotine patches. That was all without thinking of his psychological health. As a doctor these were difficult things to watch. In a friend.

But to Sherlock there was only the brain trust of his thoughts.

Did he notice women even? Hard to say. John caught himself on the way to the curb with the first Sherlock-approved bags of rubbish: anything he’d thrown on the floor was fair game, and he knew it. In fact, he stacked his old papers by the door as a reminder.

Ah-ha! He used his good looks as leverage with Molly Hooper. He did notice.

John was pretty proud of himself as he dusted off and trotted upstairs again.

The feeling died as he peeled off his coat: Or did he…?

No he didn’t. Sherlock used the lever that Molly gave him. He didn’t concern himself with her motivation. He cared how she could be useful to him. It was like a warped kind of mind-control.

John swept the kitchen, distracted, then leaned heavily on the broom. Holmes was a handful, but didn’t deserve to live as a pariah. From what John could see, other than a heap of intellect and one massive case of ADHD, there wasn’t anything wrong with him. It reassured John to realize he had no desire to somehow correct Sherlock. That wasn’t what a flatmate was for. Well – he thought as a mirror glinted at him from under the living room table – he didn’t want to correct Holmes’ behaviour; it would be great if he could pick up after himself, though. Sherlock had to get a handle on some of his habits, for sure, like firing a 9mm Browning in the apartment. But fixing that wasn’t John’s job. Out in the front room, John picked up the odd little rectangle of mirror gingerly. Mostly, Sherlock was fine as he was, and was this a drug mirror of some sort?

There was a conversation they’d never had. If Sherlock was ashamed that would be comforting.

John tucked the mirror in a kitchen drawer. There, he suspected it would be lost to the ages. Sherlock didn’t look for things, and John resolved he simply wouldn’t find it when asked. Unless it was part of some elaborate experiment regarding refraction, or… something.

Oh mighty drawer. What lies in your depths may never again see the light of day. Because Sherlock calls me home from work in order to hand him a pen.

John chuckled and shoved the drawer shut. Now if he locked it, no power under God would keep Sherlock out. He turned to survey his work.

Oh my God, I am amazing.

He wiped the table down, and was done.

There was a string of flats in Sherlock’s past. It wasn’t just the mess. It was his inability to create and maintain relationships. He actually frightened others, and that was without coming home to eyeballs in a jam jar in the microwave, and a head in a pan in the fridge. Thank you, Molly. Even if he did treat that poor girl like a puppet, part of John would never forgive her for giving Sherlock severed heads to work with. I mean, how, exactly, did one get a severed head home?

Horrifying.

Speaking of which, where was he anyway?

John looked at the slanting sun. Almost 10 AM and Sherlock hadn’t cracked the door of his room, moaned, shouted for orange juice, or tea – nothing. Lazy bugger. Did they know each other well enough for John to walk in there and wake him? That was the province of family, really. But it was getting on. They should be going for breakfast or something. He was surprised when he turned the knob and found Sherlock’s bed empty. In fact, John froze.

Sherlock had slept the night there, right? Did he make his bed up in the mornings? John had no idea. Sherlock would have known the same before John moved in. He realized he’d last seen Sherlock brooding over his blog last night. It was possible he hadn’t been in the house at all last night.

This could be nothing. Or this could be bad.

John strode back and checked for his gun. It was still in its holster beside his favourite chair. He wasn’t a Consulting Detective, but it didn’t take one to know if Sherlock had done that before leaving – and what time had Sherlock left? John figured he’d been up since 6AM and hadn’t heard Holmes. Well, maybe he could relax. Sherlock hadn’t taken the gun; things weren’t so bad.

He checked the blog.

It had been updated at 2:30AM. Did that mean Sherlock had still been in the flat?

Could he update it from his phone? Why would he do that instead of take a netbook?

Because he texts like a concert pianist plays is why.

If he’d been in the flat then-

His phone chirruped at him and John ran to pick it up.

‘That’s about enough tidying, John.’

The wash of relief felt like a dousing of ice water after a soccer game. Watson caught up his coat and keys on the way to the door. Something was on, just as surely as there was something loaded about that message. He could fairly feel it through the phone.

Hunt and peck – John texted like a geriatric – got him there with some effort: ‘Where are you, Sherlock.’ He locked the door and looked for a cab. No chance he was nearby….

The answer came back: ?

Dammit. Was there such a thing as a bad connection for texting? ‘I said where are you now.’ John typed painfully. His luck – no cabs on the street at the moment.

Sherlock responded like lightning – ‘It is a question. Alt+B = ? As in, Do you understand?’

Patience, John. ‘Okay, fine. Where are you?’ You grammar Nazi.

A series of rapid-fire texts chimed in so quickly, passersby glanced his way:

‘Scotland Yard.’

‘Come immediately.’

‘Bring soup ladle.’

‘Small bowl. As for sauces.’

Well of course. Was any other kind appropriate for Scotland Yard? John was forced to stop the cab and pick up two such ladles blocks from the Yard. It wouldn’t do to get there only to be sent back to find another kind. Then he hurried the rest of the way, oddly relieved as he saw the rotating New Scotland Yard sign. The mission was almost accomplished.

There was always a well-oiled hustle inside those doors, but it was oddly chaotic today. The officers seemed in an undue rush. John decided this was probably his imagination. He wondered if Sherlock was at the heart of this, and texted: ‘In lobby. I have spoons.’

Madness. John smiled.

It was Sergeant Sally Donovan who eventually came to get him. Her hair was caught up in a clip that made her features look more vulpine than they did, ordinarily. Her dark eyes were no less sharp. She frowned as soon as she saw the bag he held. “Doing his fetch and carry, are we? You’re his girl Friday, now?”

John looked at the bag in his hand and didn’t offer an answer, instead, he said. “Ah, good morning, Sergeant Donovan.”

She let up on him a little, as if she suddenly realized she wasn’t still dealing with Sherlock. She dearly despised Sherlock Holmes. Donovan considered him a psychopath, something that – as a doctor – John found highly unlikely. Nor did Sherlock fit as a sociopath. He was a different creature altogether. Even the unusual was mundane by comparison. But someone like Donovan wouldn’t be interested in any of that, and John wasn’t one to share his opinions indiscriminately.

Her expression went somewhat sympathetic. “You know… it’s not too late to go back to that flat and pack up your things. There’s little enough of it.”

The idea was ludicrous.

“Well, you’d know, I suppose. You did search the flat. You would have run into some of my things in there as well.” That had happened in the trumped-up drug search of, God, was it really only a month back? Time flew when you fought crime.

John reminded himself that was Sherlock’s job, Sherlock’s life.

“You shouldn’t be around him,” Donovan buzzed him into the back of the house with resignation, and motioned that he should follow. “I told you, didn’t I? He’s unstable. Murder excites him. When he finally figures he’s got the perfect formula worked out, he’ll be looking for a test case, and I’m thinking you’ll ‘move on’, or ‘head back to Afghanistan’, or something, around that time.”

This time, John actually chuckled. “You do realize you’re speaking to a doctor about madness.” But she didn’t seem to get it. The idea he might recognize a psychopath, and had actually dealt with sociopaths during the war seemed to evade her.

“I keep wondering if you’ll wind up in a body bag,” she told him over one shoulder. “Doctors are a productive part of society, Watson. That would be a shame. You should have found a girl and moved in with her. He’s a bad influence. Dangerous.”

“That he is,” John found himself saying, “if you’re criminally inclined. He caught your squad a serial killer, as you remember.”

“Takes one to know one.”

John had never seen Sherlock so much as kill a gnat, and knew if he wound up in a body bag, it wouldn’t be Sherlock putting him there. Well… unless there was something afoot… like if they were hiding, or something. How mad that any exception cropped up at all, but that was being friends with Holmes for you. He resigned to talk about this sort of thing – about the police hatred – on his blog. Delicately.

“What do you have there anyway?” She glanced at the bag he held. “Batteries for the Freak? He doesn’t eat, you know. Never seen him do it.”

“You only see him when he’s on a case.” Shortly after ‘A Study in Pink’, John remembered coming home to find that Sherlock had demolished a tuna casserole, several boxes of leftover chicken fried rice, two pork dumplings, a loaf of bread, and an entire pan of peach cobbler Sarah had made. Holmes had been curled up asleep on the couch like a snake with a bump, digesting. After one of his ‘kitchen massacres’ – Sarah’s words, not his – Sherlock didn’t feel the need to eat again for days. Sarah, having come in on the tail end of one, maintained it was critical the flat be properly stocked for those chancy moments when Sherlock’s priority one became fuelling the contraption ferrying around his brain. “He doesn’t eat on a case. He might not sleep either. You could acknowledge the commitment, at the very least?”

Donovan simply curled a lip. “He’s so abnormal.”

Certainly. But she wasn’t qualified to say he was a madman.

“Fine by me if you let him starve,” she scoffed. “You’d be doing the world a favour.”

John had to button his lip. It took effort.

She paused on back stairs over which a florescent bulb flickered in unpatterned staccato. “I don’t suppose you’re here to take him the hell away? Neither of you have any right to be here.”

“Sorry, no. When did he get here?”

“Freak? He was here when I got in at 6AM,” she bowed and shook her head. It struck Watson as an unusual action for her. “Watson, you’ve got to take him out of here.”

But all John was thinking was If Sherlock had been here by 6AM, he’d gotten some sleep.

They went to a long, wide hall in the basement. It was chilly and dim. They walked only a few feet along its nondescript beige décor before they reached the clump of sombre police in the hallway. Everyone assembled milled aside for Donovan and John.

The shower room smelled of clean water and soap. The air was clear and cool, though, not full of mist as busy showers should have been. Still, John didn’t understand what he was doing here. He would have asked Donovan, but she’d stayed behind at the door. No one else was in the actual shower room. This was standard procedure when Sherlock was looking at a crime scene. But this was New Scotland Yard, not some back alley.

Couldn’t be.

Lestrade stood in profile, in a hall at the end of two rows of dull green lockers. The Detective Inspector looked as he almost always did: collected; controlled; unruffled. He wore that fixated look that came over him whenever dealing with Sherlock. When he noticed John’s arrival, he motioned that John should join him.

“Dr. Watson.”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade.”

That was it as far as greetings went. John glanced around the corner of the lockers and froze. A body. Seriously? Someone had been murdered inside Scotland Yard. Who had the gongs for that kind of stunt? And there was Sherlock – sleeves of a chocolate coloured cotton shirt rolled up over his elbows, gloves on his hands, closely examining that terry-robed body.

“Slip and fall?” John asked Lestrade curiously. “You’re just confirming no foul play?”

“Well, there are a lot of people who want to think so. They wish I’d think so.” Lestrade ruffled his short, salt-and-pepper hair cut and grimaced. “I’d like to think so.”

From this John gathered, “But you don’t.”

“I can’t.” He put his hands on his hips and stared at the pooling blood. “Yet. That’s why he’s here, now isn’t it.”

So something about it was setting off Lestrade’s alarm bells.

Finally, Sherlock moved. He raised a hand. He resembled some exotic big cat about to take a swipe at a bee. “Spoon.”

“You’re on.” Lestrade said.

John edged in, careful not to tread in the mess of blood and water on the floor. The showers were shut off now, but he bet they hadn’t been when the body had been discovered. There was a lot of blood both inside and outside the shower stall. “Skull fracture. Do you see how he’s leaking CF on the floor from his nose and ears?”

“Do I see it?” Sherlock said each word carefully, as if pointing at them, then added. “Spoon.”

Watson held out the two ladles. Sherlock chose the second he’d bought, which was stainless steel with a small bowl and vertical handle. It was the most expensive of the pair. John was almost sad to see it go, but he had no doubt that, whatever it was about to be used for now, it would forever make the item unbearable for cooking. Even now, Sherlock’s gloved hands, red like the points of a cat, smeared blood across the steel handle. The sinking feeling only increased as he walked to the nearby shower and began scooping out the floor drain.

He stopped suddenly. “So it didn’t all wash away.” Then he looked up at John. “It was murder.”

Lestrade sighed heavily and rubbed his jaw. “We’re sure?”

John put the second ladle away. He refused it when Sherlock offered him the first. “You might want to explain. I haven’t been here for more than five minutes.”

Sherlock stood up, chicly slender in the tailored clothes he wore and very out of place in a communal shower with blood on his hands. He snapped off his gloves and tossed them in the garbage. His brows went up, momentarily. Then he motioned at John. “Tell me.”

“Looks like he slipped in the shower,” John noted. “He struck his head on the edge of two walls over there and dashed out his brains. It’s not looking like a murder to me, Sherlock.”

Sherlock pointed at the smear of blood on a brutally tiled corner and then reached in his pocket. He took out a simple glass marble he dropped on the floor. It rolled through the blood, and away from the shower.

“Oh,” John said. “But… the grade is pretty slight. Couldn’t the sheer volume of water float some of the matter into the first drain, rather than the second?” He saw his friend begin to bend down, “Sherlock, don’t pick that up, man!”

Sherlock paused, and then gave up on the marble. “Possible, yes. Before you came, I tested the flow of some of these showers. They all have a point,” he motioned at a band of tiling, “where the water is inclined to go to drains in either direction. The head isn’t on that point. But the torso is. Splatter may account for the brain material.”

“So then we’re not sure?” John asked.

“I don’t know how you see it.” Sherlock said. “I’m sure.”

John glanced around him in that moment and tried to puzzle it out. How? How was he sure?

Sherlock crouched and pointed at some of the drain scooped mess. “Murder weapon is a long, metal object, coarse, narrower than a baseball bat.”

He glanced at the red pool that lay behind him.

Straight edge in the blood.

Lestrade tipped his head to put his ear closer to Sherlock. “How’s that?”

Sherlock rose. He spoke to himself more than Lestrade. “Small skull fragment recovered from drain shows a pattern. No match with the corner of the wall.”

John nodded. “So the original injury was smaller than the one the wall made. But it happened in the same spot. Remarkable!”

“Killer strikes. Critically injured victim stumbles out of the shower, collapses, and strikes his head on a corner. Dies. The killer backs away, drops the weapon by the sinks.” He stepped around the blood pool and the almost invisible line of blood droplets that extended from the general mass. It was arrow straight. John had no idea how he’d even seen that.

Over one sink, Sherlock paused. “The killer washed up here,” he crouched down, “and cleaned the entire sink.”

Water drops on the underside. Drops on the floor. Almost dry. Over 8 hours old.

“He died last night.” Sherlock muttered. Then he headed for the door.

Lestrade and John exchanged a glance and then hurried back along the lockers. They took the corner to fall in behind Holmes. “Freak coming through,” Donovan called out to the crime scene team in the hall. Sherlock blew past her at a quick walk. He ignored Anderson’s sneer.

Meanwhile, John practically had to run to keep up with those legs. “A constitutional is fine, Sherlock, but where are we going?”

“Don’t you see? It’s a conspicuous weapon.” Sherlock told him, excitedly. His pale green eyes were so crisp they might have snapped like the tip of a whip, when he turned to face John. “Even early in the morning, it would have been too risky to carry around for long. The killer had to-” then he stopped and gave a moan. He turned in place, slightly off-kilter, like a disappointed child. “Cold Case Room?”

“Nope, I’m fine.” Donovan rebuked over her crossed arms. She wasn’t here to help him.

John looked at the door beside Sherlock’s shoulder. It was a Janitorial Closet, so he hadn’t been reading the placards, or anything.

Lestrade’s expression was heavy with dismay. “Straight down the hall two more doors. If it’s in there, it could be anywhere. The room and collection are both extensive, Sherlock.”

“Ugh,” Sherlock breathed and closed his eyes. “Going through boxes: boring.”

Donovan bristled, “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, he hates moving for the same reason,” John said cheerfully.

Sherlock was already off in the direction of the Cold Case room. Entry didn’t require a key. Once inside the tall steel shelves, impersonal Banker Boxes, and rolling ladders seemed to sap Sherlock of strength. There were more boxes than John had imagined could be in the footprint of this building. Sherlock immediately turned his attention to the epoxied floor. He walked along without them, his gaze fixed on it.

Floor clean.

Janitorial clipboard on door schedules this zone at 9PM three times a week.

Last night: Tuesday.

Cold Case Room floor clean.

Shower Room not clean.

Dead body in shower room from approximately 8PM.

Estimated time killer spent in clean-up 15 to 30 minutes.

“Oh,” Sherlock opened his hands. He squat down and touched the floor, and then looked up at John. “Is that jacket enough for you, John?”

“Wha? This?” John tweaked his brown leather jacket and felt strange being the centre of attention at such a time. “It’s fine. It is chilly in here though. Now you mention it.”

Sherlock stood up and actually chuckled. He clapped his hands together in air, held his pale fingertips to his lips as if praying, and smiled. “Oh, this is blinding.”

John half-turned his head a little and gave it a subtle gentle shaking motion.

“Oh yes?” Sherlock asked. “Not good, then?”

John sighed and looked across at Lestrade’s bemused face. Lestrade smiled as well, but bitterly, “Trying to teach him, are you? I imagine treats will help. Does he like taffy? I have some on my desk.”

Well, John liked saltwater taffy. God knew what Sherlock made of it. Though, if it happened to be in the house approximately once a week, it would likely be destroyed along with the rest of the food in the cupboards and fridge.

The only officer to overhear this exchange was Donovan who lingered in the doorway. Though the look on her face said that she found Sherlock’s comment unforgivable, she didn’t immediately alert any of the others of his joy.

“It’s not every case that we interrupt a crime in progress.” Sherlock sounded exasperated then spread his hands. “There’s a body in this room. The floor is cold enough, and the room dry enough to keep it stable. The killer stashed it here. He probably would have gotten it to the morgue with more time and preparation. He means to take it elsewhere before it’s discovered. He’s not bad, so far.” He walked along the long halls of steel-cage shelves and white Banker Boxes, scanning the lanes.

Not bad, so far? John rubbed his eyes.

Lestrade followed them, “There’s no one else missing. I’ve had people phoning, Sherlock.” He followed the genius and John.

“Not police,” Sherlock said, “Janitorial Staff. Someone saw the killer.” This body would tell him a lot about the man who committed the first murder. And it was a man. He was sure of it now.

It was a large room. He broke into a run down one of the halls, searching the place visually. John followed quickly behind, and Lestrade too. It was like some odd footrace. Sherlock wove through shelves to get the maximum view of the space he hadn’t run through.

“Sherlock!” John called out. “Lestrade says check the larger boxes on the floor in the back.”

Sherlock had already noticed. He’d raced to the back wall. Dates and numbers lined up along the faces of these larger boxes, some of which were quite weighty. John walked along the tall row of them with Sherlock and tried to really observe. Numbers started to blur. Lestrade had caught up to them again, and he watched Sherlock’s fingertips smooth along cardboard… until Holmes stopped suddenly. He looked up.

Air Conditioning duct.

Rolling ladder nearby.

Number system duplicated.

He bent beside the lowest box and gave it a tap that reverberated hollowly. “In this one.”

John brought the ladder. Together, they cleared down the boxes until they could open the one stacked lowest. It, Sherlock said, had a duplicated case number. Inside it, they found padding – bent and folded cardboard – and a smaller box. Inside that was a stout, clear plastic bag, like the kind one found around furniture, and, inside, a black garbage bag. They’d found the missing janitor (who had yet to be called in as missing.) He was small in size, and Asian. He sat with his knees against his chest, his head down, and his arms tucked inside.

Sherlock’s head tipped to one side.

Fetal position.

Once John and Lestrade lifted the man out, Sherlock studied the stiff body carefully. Moving around him slowly, like a hunting crab.

Abrasion on centre of forehead. Blunt force trauma.

Pocket contents undisturbed. Jewelry undisturbed.

Restraint appropriate. No signs of hyperextension.

Left hand in right hand. Wedding band.

Sherlock looked at the forehead through his portable magnifier and told John. “The head impacted a flat, porous surface, but only once. Then-”

“Asphyxiation,” John said. “Look at his eyes.” He released the lid to fall back over the splotchy purples in the whites of the man’s eyes.

Eyelids closed.

Sherlock clacked the magnifier back. “Marks on the neck: the killer used a plastic bag. No rawness or fingernail cuts on the skin: victim’s arms were bound at the time to prevent him interfering when, or if, he woke.”

“So our killer doesn’t have scratches.” John said.

Lestrade pointed out, “Neither did his victim.”

Attempted to be humane.

“He regrets this one.” Sherlock sat back on the floor, leaning his long back on white boxes as he looked at the man.

To John the cold floor looked perfectly uninviting. Holmes had to be freezing his bottle caps off sitting there as he was. But Sherlock was exclusively focused on the second victim.

John bent at the waist to catch Sherlock’s eyes. “So the killer knew him. Maybe he knew him to see him.” It had to be cold for him. He was just insensible to it, yet.

Sherlock’s pale green eyes slid to take John in, and John immediately reached down to help Holmes to his feet. He came up stiffly and only then realized he’d been uncomfortable. Sherlock gave his shirt a tug to order and set his hands on his narrow hips. “The weapon is not far. The killer is dismayed now. He’s been forced to eliminate someone he didn’t want to. He needs to be rid of it.”

He kept hunting around… “Bag.” He muttered to himself.

Searching the boxes was closely monitored by Lestrade. It took the better half of an hour. During that hour, Sherlock commented on three cold cases through his different reading of the evidence at hand. It was fascinating to hear.

John was hardly looking as he opened the 25th box, up on the top shelf. His fingers touched plastic and cold steel. He stopped and looked at what sat atop the collection. “Sherlock.”

Holmes stopped rooting through a box containing a tiny shirt, a teddy bear, pig-tail bobbles, and other things that John hadn’t been able to go through without feeling sick. Holmes looked up the ladder at what John held out to him. “Crowbar.”

Sherlock smiled up at him. “Lovely. Give it here.”

John thought it wiser to walk down with the thing than to drop it from nearly two stories up. If it hit Sherlock, he wouldn’t hear the end of it from Mycroft. When he got close enough to the floor that his head was on level with Sherlock’s, Holmes snatched the crowbar away. It was an impressive display of self-restraint. “Forensics lab.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Anderson said as he found the hall they stood in. His eyes goggled when he saw the seated, rigour-starched body of the Janitor, and his skin flushed red with anger. “What the hell? Where did he come from? You carry him along in your pocket, Holmes?”

“If you paid attention, you would have known to look for him,” Sherlock tucked the crowbar behind his back as Anderson made a grab for it. “I can see you’re in an agitated state being as things aren’t going well at home. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Throw you out of this building? I’m more than happy to.” Anderson snapped. He gave up on Sherlock for a moment. “I’m sorry, Detective Inspector Lestrade, but Super Sharpe called. He wants these two out of the building immediately. That’s coming from Commander Snow.”

“We’ll leave.” Sherlock said. “Where’s my coat.”

“In the trash with that scarf of yours,” Anderson snapped. “What do I care? And you’re not leaving with that, Holmes.”

When he reached, Sherlock merely held the crowbar up. He was taller than everyone else in the room. “I found it, ergo my clue. I’m well able to handle the analysis. Be useful. Get my coat.”

“Get your own coat. I’m not having this! I’ll have you taken to the ground the minute you get outside the door, and thrown in a cell like a-”

Sherlock handed him the crowbar and breezed past. “Dull. Let’s go, John.”

“I’ll be calling you with the forensics,” Lestrade said as they passed him by.

“Seems like you won’t be allowed to,” Sherlock indicated acidly.

He, of course, knew where the coat and cashmere scarf were. He had a dozen of the scarves at home, same colour. Mycroft sent one to him every birthday, or so John had heard. This appeared impersonal if one didn’t know Sherlock’s hatred of having cold air down the neck of his coat, or his simple appreciation for a scarf that was not scratchy, not too long, and neither too heavy nor too light. It suited him perfectly. Mycroft knew this, and kept him in scarves.

John followed out of the building, soup ladle in hand, watching Sherlock’s long coat swing back and forth before him. Sherlock’s hands were joined behind his back, but hard enough for the skin to be white in places. Sherlock wasn’t quite legging it out of there, but he was sure being quick about it. Anderson had threatened him with something Sherlock actually found distasteful – that had to be captivity, right? But John began to see the larger picture as he hurried behind. Like how Lestrade had offered to drive them to a crime scene once, and Sherlock had said No, not in a squad car, or something to that effect. And Lestrade had raided the apartment – that was when John had learned his flatmate had once had a drug habit. He’d thought it had been minor: small amounts of marijuana for personal use, with which Sherlock unknowingly self-medicated to calm his racing thoughts and stimulate that nigh nonexistent appetite. But what if that hadn’t been the case? What if it wasn’t some misdemeanor?

John stopped dead. “You were arrested. They stuck you in a car and threw you in jail.”

Passersby looked up at this and diverted around them as if they were a couple in a lover’s spat, one having sprung the other from jail for a wild night spent out without him.

Sherlock turned and walked backwards, which forced John to keep moving.

“Was it Lestrade? Did Lestrade have you arrested?” John waved the soup ladle at him.

His flatmate’s expression had gone dark. Suddenly, Sherlock stopped walking. This forced John to pull up sharply, or collide with the tall, slim figure before him. After a moment, Sherlock found some halting words that went along with his feelings. “I would not like to talk about this.” He turned around and kept walking.

John followed, suddenly humiliated at his behaviour in public. Sherlock had every right to be furious. John fell in beside the man. They went in silence for a while before John said: “Chinese?”

Sherlock didn’t look at him, but the answer was genuine. “What you like.”

It meant he wasn’t eating. Exasperating habit! Very poor in terms of health! “We’re not on the case, Sherlock. Be reasonable. We’ve been thrown off.”

Now Sherlock’s gaze was alarmed. “Listening to Anderson is very bad for you. Avoid it. And if you want Chinese, we’ll have Chinese.”

“All right,” John nodded as they walked along. “And I’m sorry for the-”

“No need.” Sherlock closed the subject.

A half an hour later, Sarah dropped lightly into a seat opposite John. Sherlock, who sat staring out a window and plucking his bottom lip, paid her no notice, but John brightened at once.

“You look good,” he told her. “I’ll be joining you this afternoon.” John pushed his overloaded plate of Kung Pao across for her to try.

“I know,” she smiled at him and picked a peanut off his plate which she crunched. “Ooh, delicious! And, yes, it’s exciting to have you at work with me.”

“Thanks.”

“Banal.”

“It’ll be a great afternoon for us both.” John didn’t even look in Sherlock’s direction.

“Are you having a rough day, Sherlock?” Sarah asked him carefully. She’d been embroiled in the investigation that John had titled The Blind Banker. During that dangerous affair, her life had been in jeopardy and John and Sherlock had saved it. Now she seemed to care about Holmes’ situation quite a bit. It both perplexed and annoyed Sherlock. In his mind, of course, he was aware he’d saved hundreds of people in the run of his Consulting career. But none of them kept coming around while he was thinking just to annoy him. “Sherlock?” She asked.

Holmes started to move, “I should go.”

But Sarah’s hand shot out and caught his. The action was so quick, John hadn’t seen it coming either. Her hand was tiny beside Sherlock’s tapered fingers. It was like she’d touched him with the cherry edge of a cigarette. Holmes’ hand jumped out of hers, but he was also frozen in position, half on his way. Sarah apologized, “Sorry about that! I just don’t feel right about driving you off.”

That was good enough for John, who, as Sarah kept speaking, reached out and pressed Holmes back into his chair by the shoulder. He put up with a lot for Sherlock Holmes. And now Sherlock saw that it was his turn. He slackened into his chair with his eyes seething. But he took it.

“What would you like?” Sarah asked him. “It’ll be on me.”

“Oh God.” Sherlock muttered at the window.

“Shall I just order you something?” Sarah asked brightly. “Do you not know the menu here?”

“John,” Sherlock made an appeal to the blond man seated beside him. “Do something.”

And he did. John put his head down and cracked up. The beseeching look was comical. Finally, and before Sarah could take it in her head to order for him, John told her. “He’s on a case.”

“That’s good news, but what does it have to do with Chinese?”

“He doesn’t eat on a case.”

“Well that’s absurd.” Sarah said.

Sherlock actually pivoted his entire body to look at John now. Really look at him. It was like having pale green hammer blows hit him in the side of the head. “No. Well. You see, when you digest, blood is diverted from the extremities to the stomach. One of those extremities is the head.”

“If he doesn’t have enough nutrients, he won’t be able to think straight,” she looked at Sherlock and said. “Too little blood sugar, and you won’t be able to read. Would you like chicken, beef, or both?”

“John.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Sherlock, she’s not asking you to put a scorpion in your mouth, she’s offering to feed you, which I happen to think is very kind. You ate her cobbler and casserole without any complaints, didn’t you?”

Sherlock blinked, “That cobbler was yours?”

“Yes.” Sarah smiled.

“It needed more sugar.”

“Sherlock!” John admonished now nearly in a state of collapse from trying not to laugh. He dissolved soon after. Sarah looked on smiling widely.

“I know I’m newer on the scene,” she told Sherlock. “I can see you don’t relate well to women, but I’m honestly interested in getting to know you. And you can talk to me, Sherlock. Not everything you say needs to come through the filter of Dr. John Watson. You should give it a try.”

“Fine.” Sherlock said flatly. “We’ll begin with the fact nothing I do is absurd. There is a reason for everything I do.”

“Unless he’s bored.” John said, having since recovered. He didn’t dare look up.

“Even then,” Sherlock sighed. “Whatever you bring, I won’t eat it. You’re wasting your time.”

Sarah shrugged, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He simply stared at her.

“Tea then?”

He finally agreed to a cup of green tea, which, John happened to know, Sherlock liked quite a bit, particularly with sugar. He already had several pouches by the time Sarah brought it, and her tray of Kung Pao, back to the table.

“What new case?” She asked.

Sherlock fired back, “Don’t know. John hasn’t written it up and titled it yet.”

“Oh, I see,” John avoided smiling as he said it. “She tells you to talk to her, and suddenly I can’t get a word in edgewise.”

Sherlock settled sideways in his chair with a long exhalation before sipping his tea. He watched through the window, his back now to John.

John chuckled and turned to Sara again. “Double murder, in fact. Can’t really believe where.”

“Which is?”

John leaned forward, his shadow crossing the watery sunlight on the table. “The Yard. But you have to keep it in confidence.”

“How on earth does someone pull such a thing off?” She asked curiously. Her glance immediately flew to Sherlock as she asked this. It made John blink a little. Somewhat disappointed that she didn’t expect him to know the answer.

Sherlock looked over his shoulder, light making his pale skin gleam in outline. “Inside job. This wasn’t done in the museum, or in any location to which civilians have access.”

John looked across. “Who was that, Sherlock? That first man? The one in the shower?”

“Police psychologist,” Sherlock said darkly. He turned back toward the table, “the man who knew everyone’s secrets. Yesterday evening, he learned something that cost him his life. It kept him at the office all night. Possibly debating, or worrying, about the information. He would have had time to write it down on his laptop, perhaps even on paper – his fingertips had small, shallow cuts. The kind you get from sheets of paper. He still wrote actual correspondence.”

“But the laptop will be back in the Yard.” noted John.

“Yes it will. It’s out of my hands.”

“Maybe we can look into the second man. Or head over to the psychologist’s house.” John munched some rice. “There are other leads, surely.”

“He hadn’t been home since he found out. I’ve called his voice mail and he didn’t think to leave himself a message about the crime. Perhaps he knew the police would look for something like that. Aside from which, I’m not eager to pursue leads while we’re being followed by police.” Sherlock told him.

John stopped chewing. His blue eyes darted up.

“Relax,” Sherlock said quietly. “This is not unexpected.”

“But they could be-”

“Relax, John,” Sherlock nodded.

A loaded silence dominated the table.

“When I was in med school,” Sarah looked between them, “I… I’d drop To Do lists and notes of encouragement in inner-hospital mail. They’d come back to me a couple of days later. It was really quite cheering.”

“That’s sweet,” John told her.

“I didn’t mean it to be sweet,” Sarah looked at Sherlock. “I mean, if he didn’t trust the laptop or his answering service, and he wrote it out like most psychologists do… he couldn’t leave it on his desk. So what do you do with a letter to yourself?”

Sherlock’s eyes were fixed on hers. “Send it by mail. He is a clinical psychologist thinking like a clinical psychologist. Therefore, he knew he needed to get the matter off his chest so he could go home and do… whatever you people do. Probably sleep. And after writing the case up, he showered, that is, he cleaned his conscience. It was bothering him that he’d not made a decision the same night. If he wasn’t such a moral person, he might have lived longer. But they’d have gotten him at his home.”

John sat back. “They?”

“You don’t sit at your desk all night worrying about repercussions to one person, John,” Sherlock said. “That takes a couple of hours. But multiply that by four or six? That takes a night.”

Images of John’s years in the military painted his dreams. If he thought about it now, he realized he’d worried more about larger deployments of men sent to seize territory. The responsibility was greater. The odds of a mortal outcome rose with the number of men. He nodded at Sherlock. “But there was only one guy waiting in the shower room?”

“It might have been the hour. If there had been more on hand, surely someone would have moved the dead Janitor to the morgue’s icebox. Whatever happened, so far, nothing to argue against a single party being guilty of these murders: someone able to kill when he feels the act is justified, but not utterly without mercy.”

“Pity we can’t go through the shrink’s personnel files for clues.”

“This killer would have preferred to beat the man’s brains out in his home. It would have been less discoverable; he’d have had more shelter, and time for clean-up. He could honestly have made this man disappear.” Sherlock laid down his cell phone and slurped tea. He pushed his phone between John and Sarah. “Unmarried. Lives alone.”

“Lived.” John said.

“Yes. This is text from his profile,” Sherlock explained with a nod. “I’m on his Tumblr page. More importantly, the answer could be sitting in his Outbox right now.” Sherlock snatched up the phone and started texting before he even finished the sentence. Then he got up and paced the narrow establishment. It was a good thing most of the orders, at this hour, were carry-out, or delivery, because with Sherlock swirling about, there wasn’t a lot of room in the halls.

“How do you stand it,” Sarah asked. Her brows bobbed adorably. “All the excitement?”

This was concerning. “You don’t like it?”

“Oh, actually, I like the puzzles. I think… I mean, that’s fine, but I don’t think I’d relish dead bodies much.” Sarah clarified, “And, John, what’s going on with him?”

John watched Sherlock pacing along the back wall, texting – tall, long, rangy, he still looked like a big kid, handsome enough to attract the girls, but too strange for them to enjoy. Then he looked back at Sarah, “I haven’t figured it out yet. He is a concern though. He’s a genius-”

“Well, duh.” She chuckled and scooped up rice, celery, and carrot with a chunk of chicken. “I already knew that much, but what about the rest?”

“I think he’s daft.”

Sarah blinked at him. “Daft, but a genius.”

“You don’t know him.”

She flushed a little, “Well, I know you, and so I hope to know the people you care about.”

Ah. Good news. “Well… he’s tops at ignoring his physical needs. He can go mad amounts of time fasting. You wouldn’t believe it.” John chewed his chicken. Sherlock had stopped in the far corner of the restaurant and was staring out the window there.

“It’s unsafe,” she said. But then, what else could she be expected to say. They were both doctors. They both understood that, as good as he looked outside, Sherlock could be torn in ribbons inside. “Maybe we can get him to take some supplements?”

John laid down his fork and joined his hands before him in air. “You… you’re really worried about him.” They stared at each other for a moment, and Sarah sipped her Tab.

“Sometimes I thought you talked about him like he was a kid. That, I thought, was patronizing,” she admitted. “But then I met him. He doesn’t take proper care of himself. It seems he can only attend to what he fixates on. And you care about him, so I-”

“You care,” John said pointedly, “you care about him.”

Sarah’s head tipped a little. “John… please don’t feel strange about what I’m going to say.”

Uh-oh.

“When we were in that tunnel, and that crazy woman was going to put a bolt in my chest, I honestly think I saw my life flash by. To be frank, when Holmes untied my wrists, when he told me it was over, I could have kissed him on the mouth.”

John averted his gaze at his plate.

Her voice was soft, “The only person I appreciated more at that moment, was the man who made sure the bolt went into one of the bad guys.”

John looked up. Sarah smiled at him. “So, do I care? Yes, I do. I’d be daft not to.”

Which meant she also cared about average, un-exotic John Watson. “You mustn’t tell him that, you know.”

“I sort of figured,” she nodded in reply. “He’s very cagy. God help a woman in love with him.” She fastened her teeth on her straw and shook her head.

“Oh I mean the part about kissing him on the mouth,” Watson grinned impiously. “That thing on top of his neck is his temple. I’m pretty sure you would be trespassing.”

“Haven’t worked out his feelings for you yet, have you?” Sarah asked. When John shook his head, she checked her watch and then rubbed her hands together. “You’re blushing.”

John sat back and rubbed his hands on his thighs, surprised, “Am I?”

She seemed overly pleased by this and had to rein in her gloating smile to explain. “We have to go in 10 if we want to get to work on time.”

He drank the last of his water and decided he was finished. He followed Sarah, “I’ll check what the plan is, and then we can head out.”

Sherlock still watched cars beyond the window. His attention was punctuated with glances down to read or text. As soon as John arrived beside him, he said. “The mail has already gone out. Was he sending this to himself, was it going external, or was he sending to someone else?”

“You can think at home.” Watson suggested. He reached out and tugged Sherlock around by the cuff of his coat. “Let’s go.”

“But I just ordered Green Tea.”

“You didn’t go near the counter.”

“Over the internet.”

“Over…. Okay, fine. But home after. Having police watch you right now, it makes me paranoid.”

“Only now?” Sherlock’s brows went up. “Clearly, you’ve never been arrested.”

A small Asian woman emerged from behind the red slab of counter. She set down a tray on which there sat a teapot and tea cups, and looked around her. She glanced out into the street.

“It’s mine.” Sherlock said.

“It’s… yours, sir? Well… are you sure no Almond Cookies?”

At least she’d recovered quickly.

“Yes,” Sherlock said. He dropped back into the seat he’d occupied. Sarah reached across and folded bills into the woman’s hands. “Please keep him in tea as he likes.” She turned and headed out of the restaurant. John followed behind her.

They were in Sarah’s car before Sherlock texted. ‘Stop her doing that.’

John looked up at Sarah. “Sherlock says thanks.”

Sun patterned her pale skin and chestnut hair as she pulled them onto the street, and Sarah looked pleased with herself. She’d done a good turn for a man who’d been shot at running to her rescue. John thought satisfaction a good look on her.

It was a strange transition for him though, out of a world of salacious murders, forensics, and implacable logical puzzles into a 9 to 5 job. It was throwing the brakes on a Mack truck. The next few hours were wholly devoid of crushed skulls, smugglers, wily serial killers, and high art thieves of any kind. What he did have was:

\- 1 case of tonsillitis

\- 1 torn ligament

\- 2 allergic reactions

\- 6 colds or running noses

\- 1 case of tennis elbow

\- 1 migraine

The office was secure and safe. It ran like a well-oiled machine. For example, the personnel were warm and welcoming. They treated incoming patients like coffee shop guests. Possibly because of the handling, the patients seemed like decent people under their aches and pains. He saw a couple of Sarah’s patients when she fell behind on vaccinations. She had four year old twins tearing through her examination room. It was funny to hear Sarah’s soothing voice amid the yells and cries. And he felt a twinge of empathy with the exasperated mother who stepped out into the hallway to lean on the door and puff air. She put a hand over her heart to steady herself. This was the normal world. Had Sherlock ever seen this?

As darkness settled in, the appointments grew further between.

John checked his phone for texts.

Sarah came to a stop beside him in the front room. She leaned over the counter and found the place empty. “I can’t believe it.”

“That you got those needles in the four year olds? Me neither.”

“That I survived them. His mother warned me that one of them was a biter. She hadn’t figured out which of them yet. I took that to mean both of them.” She laughed and rubbed her eyes. “Anything from Sherlock?”

“No. He’s probably home thinking.” He texted ‘Where are you’, nonetheless. Sarah walked over to lock the front door and turn the placard over to ‘CLOSED’. She started pulling blinds.

‘Done at the office. Should I bring supper?’ “Wouldn’t want to forget the question mark,” he muttered.

“Want some tea?”

John rubbed his face. “I’d love some. Had a lot of colds around today. I really could use something to head that off.”

“Ginger tea,” she said with a nod. “In my office.” He walked in and hunted up the teabags, they soon had tea and shortbread cookies to themselves in the break room. It was a small room. There was a tiny cathode-ray television that had a handful of channels, all of which they ignored. The table was small and shoved in a corner. They sat shoulder to shoulder there, and speculated about passengers in the cars passing outside.

Sarah sighed. “You really believe you can tell that much about a person from their car?”

“Sarah… look who I live with. It’s his bread and butter.”

“It can’t all be real though,” she half-turned toward him. “I mean, it’s guessing.”

“He’s not guessing.” John shook his head. “Not usually. And if he is, it’s a probability game. Sherlock is very good with math.” John went for another shortbread cookie – his fifth.

“Don’t eat all those,” Sarah giggled. “Some are for him.”

He dodged her hand and grabbed a cookie with the excuse, “He may not eat this week. And what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Sarah had heated the cookies in the microwave and smeared them with cream cheese icing. In short, it was her fault for making them irresistible. They huddled there together. It was a simple, pleasant time of the night, this last hour they spent talking about nothing was part of the reason he loved his job.

“I made these,” she said of the shortbread. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe. Not bad, yes?”

“You’re a regular Nigella Lawson,” John told her. “Only more attractive.”

She looked down at the container and said, “Well, now I have to give you all of them.” She pushed the Tupperware across to him.

John sipped his tea. “I’d rather share them anyway.”

“With him?” she asked curiously. “Or with me?”

Thank God his phone gave a ping. John pushed aside his discomfort to fish in the pocket of the white medical coat he wore.

Sarah laughed, “Maybe he needs you to run home and cross his legs in the opposite direction.” She’d heard the story about the pen. And the phone. And the notebook. Among other things.

‘Outside.’

“No he’s here.” John’s brows went up. The doors were locked. They would have to go let him in. “Feel like a walk?”

They headed toward the front together.

Ping. The phone announced: ‘Back door.’

John felt a sudden chill and stopped in the long hall between examination rooms.

From her position slightly behind him, Sarah frowned. “What’s wrong, John?”

“Probably it’s nothing.” But he still wished he had his gun.

The way to the back door took them past examination rooms with open blinds. John turned out the lights and shut those doors for privacy. Then he arrived in the back. He gathered a breath and pushed the emergency door. Outside was darkness. The back of the building faced the back of another. The lone oxidized light sat a kilter at the top of the alley. Behind him, Sarah turned on a light above their door. Sherlock leaned on the wall opposite the stairs. His hands were in his coat pockets. He’d been looking curiously up at John, framed against the light from inside. John sighed in relief. “What are you doing out here? The front door wasn’t exactly packed, Sherlock.”

Sherlock tipped his dark head back against the wall. The light caught sweat on his pale skin. By the time he lurched from the bricks John was already in motion. He had that look of a man about to pass out. John caught Sherlock around the chest and, somehow, kept him upright. He could feel Sherlock’s heart thudding against his shoulder.

“Sherlock? Sherlock, can you hear me?” He hoped, though his voice was muffled against the shoulder of the coat. It even smelled expensive, that thing.

“Of course.” Sherlock said faintly. He wasn’t sounding good. He folded a little, his scarf flattening against the side of John’s head as he sagged.

Even as thin as he was, his tall frame was too much weight. He had to stay awake. “Sherlock!” John said sharply. “Focus!”

Sherlock returned to himself with a sudden twitch and deep breath. He’d been surprised.

“I need to get him up the stairs.” John said breathlessly. Holmes was lanky, even if he didn’t weigh as much as one would expect for a man his height, he was hard to move. Sarah barred the door open and caught hold of the front of Sherlock’s coat.

“It’s wool,” Sherlock gasped. Sarah registered this, blinked at him, and yanked on the coat. She used it’s snugness around his body to steady him, and guide him up the stairs into the clinic. It was actually a quite smart way to maximize her strength. Then she squeezed to the wall and let the men lumber pass.

“Damn! Your legs are like stilts,” John grunted.

“Sorry John.” Holmes sounded blurry.

The door shut behind them with a crack that made Sherlock flinch.

“Exam 1,” Sarah zipped past and yanked the door open. “Inside. Now.”

She seemed to be having a hard time believing Sherlock hadn’t gone to a hospital. But John had no time for that. “Coat,” John said. Sarah grappled with the thing and yanked it off Sherlock’s shoulders. That caused Holmes to hiss with pain. It took coordination to get the coat off. All of it was too much for Sherlock, who couldn’t keep his feet throughout. John got his jacket open as Sherlock slid to the floor beside the examination table. All of them lacked the power to get him up onto it.

“Sorry,” Sherlock breathed. He didn’t have the energy to spare to open his eyes.

“Please tell me you didn’t shoot yourself playing with my gun.” John said.

“Oh, it wasn’t me,” Sherlock held up a hand smeared with blood. In fact, there was a sticky red stain across the ribs of the chocolate shirt he wore.

John’s heart leapt in his throat. He fairly tore at Sherlock’s shirt. “Where?”

“Arm. Relax.” Sherlock fumbled his top button open. John took over from there and Sherlock sat panting. He offered no resistance.

“Are you sure?” John peeled back his ruined shirt. It made a syrupy sound as the blood released its suction hold on his skin. He wiped away blood with a damp cloth Sarah handed him, but the flesh John could see was uniformly pale and unmarred. In fact, his skin was as pure as a girl’s. Their eyes met. “We’ll never discuss this again.”

“Outstanding,” Sherlock turned his head to watch the wound come out. It hurt, pulling the sleeve away from the injury. Sherlock had tied a scarf for pressure.

“Handy,” John said nervously.

The bullet had passed through the inside of his upper arm. “It went clean through muscle.”

Sarah sat down on Sherlock’s other side, and laid a collection of medical supplies half in Sherlock’s lap. “He’s going to need a local.” She reached down and took Sherlock’s pulse. He watched her actions curiously. “Erratic pulse,” she put the flat of her hand on his chest, “I can feel he’s in tachycardia.”

“Blood pressure cuff,” John pulled the electronic unit from beside the bed and pushed it her way. He was already in ‘bullet wound’ mode. He’d seen so many of these by now that his responses were automatic. John spat out the cap for the needle and drew prilocaine into the syringe. He pressed a hand to the shoulder to keep Sherlock still and numbed the area.

“Try to breathe normally?” John said.

Sherlock panted, “Yes, all the time.”

John couldn’t help the smile that came. It gave way to a chill of fear. “Someone tried to kill you. You might have been killed.”

“Or it was a warning. Inner left arm. Could have been a chest shot.” Sherlock told him. He picked up the phial John had tossed in his lap. “Prilocaine. Good for three hours.” The pain began to draw back and Sherlock’s arm sank down to the floor as if the bottle had steadily grown in weight. He laid his head back against the slotted drawers of the examination table.

“Come on, Sherlock. Hold on to consciousness.” John told him. “Come on.”

Sarah reached up and pulled Sherlock’s head toward them. “He’s not quite out, John, I don’t think. Is he squeamish?”

“God no.” John actually laughed, but the sound came out ragged and a little deranged.

“Sherlock,” she called his name and then put a cold pack she’d been squeezing to activate against the back of his neck. He snapped awake.

“You aren’t done?” he asked. “What is the point of waking me… if you’re not done?”

“Just stay here,” John told him sharply. “Don’t do that again.”

Sherlock struggled for breath.

Sarah confirmed, “His blood pressure is low.”

“Low dangerous, or low, but acceptable?” Amazing how calm he sounded.

“I think we can get him through, but he’s been bleeding a while. If it doesn’t stop soon we’ll need to get him to hospital for a transfusion. I’ll monitor.” She sat back and looked into Sherlock’s unfocussed green eyes. “He hasn’t been eating.”

“Hypoglycemia.” John glared up at Sherlock.

“I need to get him something sugary.” Sarah shot up and hurried out of the office. While she was gone, Sherlock’s deep, panting breaths were nearly the only sound in the room. John worked silently, never taking his eyes from the wound as he cleaned it. On the first washing down, it had started bleeding all over again. He had the bleeding under control now, and had returned to cleaning it.

Sherlock shifted. John sat back from him a little.

“Are you comfortable?”

Holmes’ eyes were closed again. “I want water.”

“Not right now. Wait for Sarah.” He washed the wound and willed it not to start bleeding again. The wound was very close to the Brachial Artery and Basilic Vein. It might have slid right through between them. John needed it to stop bleeding.

“I didn’t leave the restaurant,” Sherlock began, “I was thinking. Reading. It was well after dark. I didn’t make it to the tube. No… I didn’t even get my coat on out the door. I didn’t hear the shot, I just felt it.”

John’s heart was galloping. He had to blink away a flood of images of sandy, dusty men, bleeding out as they rambled. They needed to – wanted to – explain how it happened, a last record for their unit and their families. John had done the same thing once, or so he’d been told. He’d hardly been conscious.

“I lost them in the streets,” Sherlock said.

“You bled a lot during that time.” The holes in Sherlock’s knowledge could be daunting. “You know that’s bad. You know you should have drawn attention to the fact you’d been shot. People would have helped you, Sherlock.”

“I…. John there are two places I’d go for this. Molly Hooper, or you. If we’re lucky, they’re heading for Molly’s lab. I’ve known her for longer. She would ask no questions if I showed up in this state.”

“But you didn’t go to Molly,” John half-smiled wryly. “God knows what she’d have done to you if you’d passed out for any length of time.”

“I don’t follow.”

It made John laugh in spite of himself.

Sarah settled down and tucked a straw into a small plastic container of orange juice. “Who’s Molly? I think I’ve seen a Molly comment on your blog, John.”

“The same.” The bleeding had stopped. He would be able to bind the wound properly now. “Sherlock’s chew-toy. Poor girl.”

“Uncalled for.” Sherlock said indistinctly. The discomfort of having his arm moved around to be surgically bandaged was causing his consciousness to fade.

Sarah glanced between the men and then shook herself back to the task at hand, “Your blood sugar will be very low right now, Sherlock.”

“Why is she always trying to feed me?” Sherlock asked no one in particular.

John finished binding the wound and sat back. “No-no, like this, Sarah. Sherlock, the brain needs sugar to function. It uses fully one-half of the sugar in your body so you can think. That’s amazing for something that weighs only about 2 percent of-”

Though Sarah held the container, Sherlock sucked the straw. His breathing began to slow and deepen. Sarah nodded and fastened the fingers of her other hand to his wrist. She watched the wall clock. “His colour is improving. Pulse is slowing.” She glanced up as Sherlock finished the drink, and smiled. “Feel better?”

“We can’t stay here. We need to get across town to the Met.” He said.

John gawped at him. “You want to go there?”

“It’s the safest place we can be, John.” Sherlock wincingly sat up. “Ugh.” He moaned. “Sweaty.”

“You’ve just been shot.” John waved his open shirt at him. “Look at all this blood, Sherlock. You need water and rest right now.”

Sherlock plucked the sleeve from him, “I can’t go home for a change of clothes either. You’re good at laundry. Can you wet and wring this out?”

John put a hand up to cover his mouth lest he shout at the man.

“We’ll need painkillers,” Sarah pointed out. “I’ll make a kit. You two, please work this out.” As she rose, she gave John’s shoulder – the one he’d been shot in, actually – a supportive squeeze.

“We can’t take you to the Yard, Sherlock, someone there is trying to kill you. As you said, there could be any number of people involved in this.”

“But only one killer,” Sherlock wincingly pulled off his shirt. He turned it over in his hands to examine it.

Bullet entry high. Bullet exit low.

Shot fired from above.

He got unsteadily to his feet and crossed to the sink.

“Oh, give me that!” John snapped. Sherlock was still too woozy to think about using the muscles in his arm for something like scrubbing out a bloodstain. “Sit down. Take some Ibuprofen from the drug cabinet.”

John rinsed out a surprising amount of blood drying the wet fabric as best he could with a white towel. When he glanced, he saw Sherlock leaned on the examination table, hunched, with his right hand wrapped around his left elbow. He was in pain.

“I thought I told you to grab some Ibuprofen. The cabinet’s open.”

Sherlock looked up. “I’ll be fine.”

John shook out the shirt as he considered Sherlock. Avoiding painkillers wasn’t judicious. “It’s Ibuprofen,” John told him quietly.

Sherlock didn’t look up. “I don’t take those.”

After a moment of silence, John said. “Then I’ll carry some with me, just in case.” He also slipped a few phials of prilocaine into his pocket. He’d explain to Sarah later, provided such an explanation would be required after a night like this one. Then he brought the shirt to Sherlock, who winced his way into it. He forewent the bloody jacket. It was designer, almost certainly. But then, Sherlock, when hired by private interests, could make tens of thousands in a few days. He could replace a jacket. Replacing Sherlock would be a lot a harder.

He minced into the shirt and got it closed. “Coat.”

Watson had already thrown his own white coat onto a coat hook.

Sherlock’s coat was still on the floor by the end of the medical bed. John snatched it up and handed it to Holmes. The scarf was beyond saving. It was soaked with blood. John winced at the splashes of red on the floor. More than he’d expected. It seemed to surprise Sherlock as well.

“Listen to me,” John turned toward Sherlock. “If I tell you, tonight, that you need to get something in your system, if I tell you to rest, or get water, it’s not a suggestion. Are you following that? We’re about to go in the lion’s den. I need to get you through that. It’s my goal.”

“Metaphorical.”

“What?” John blinked.

“Metaphorical lion’s den,” Sherlock finished with his buttons and looked up. “We need to go.”

Sarah brought a medical kit into the room. It was a simple cloth grocery sack full of medical supplies. She gave Sherlock a quick glance-over and reached in the bag. “There are drinks in the bag.” Her eyes dropped to the floor. “I’ll need to get this cleaned up.”

“You need to get out of here,” John told her. “In fact, I’d prefer it if you waited at our flat.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it’s most likely monitored by MI6,” Sherlock muttered as he buttoned the cuff of his sleeve carefully. His left hand was slow. It was going to hurt his texting.

Sarah’s jaw dropped open. “He’s not serious.”

John put his keys into her hands. “We’ll put you in a cab. Go directly to Baker’s Street. Mrs. Hudson won’t bother you.”

“Who is that?”

“Our housekeeper. I suggest you don’t eat anything on the bottom shelf of the fridge. Also, don’t touch my skull,” Sherlock flexed his left hand and nodded at her gravely. Muscles flickered in his face – a mix of irritation and tension from the pain.

She helped him on with his coat.

They walked through the back alley together and crossed the parallel street quickly. From there, they returned to the twists and turns of the alleys Sherlock knew so well. Finally, they pulled to a stop. At the end of the narrow street they stood in, cabs rolled by.

“He’s better than GPS,” Sarah marvelled.

“John,” Sherlock motioned in the direction of the road that ran perpendicular. He sounded winded, which was out of character for him as he was exceedingly fit, even if his dietary habits were deplorable. He could honestly run for miles on those long legs. “Put her into a cab.”

“I can do it for myself.” Sarah replied and nodded her thanks.

“I know that,” Sherlock told her breathlessly. “It wasn’t suggested for your sake. John forms disproportionate attachments. Trust me, it’s necessary.”

“Keep him hydrated.” Sarah told John before she turned and raced to the top of the alley. She hailed a cab in full sight of them and tossed them a look before she slipped into the back.

John leaned against the brick wall of a building with Sherlock. They looked at one another for a moment. “How are you holding up with all this running?”

“It hurts,” Sherlock confirmed. “For future reference, it still hurts.” He took out his phone and started texting at his normal speed. It had to hurt, but he gave no indication of it.

“So what’s the plan?” John said, having caught his breath.

Sherlock glanced down at him, “Do you know where we are?”

“No,” John laughed. “You’ve gotten me lost. Apparently, I’ll follow you blindly.”

Sherlock smiled and looked up at the wall across from him.

“Two floors up, window on the corner, with the light on low,” he gestured with his good hand. “That is Sergeant Donovan’s apartment.”

“She’d as soon shoot you as say hello,” John laughed.

The grin was back, “But would she miss the chance to see me shot? I assure you, if the tables were turned, I would climb over you and Mrs. Hudson for a look.”

John shook his head. Sometimes there was no helping Sherlock, but even seconds after he thought this, the window Sherlock had indicated flew open. Sally Donovan leaned out, her hair bound up on top of her head. She looked back and forth. When she withdrew, Sherlock chuckled. “Predictable.”

“But you just said that, if the tables were turned you’d do the same thing.” John said.

“Please, John, I must do some things as the rest of you do them. Without that, I’d be a complete puzzle.” He stepped away from the wall and started walking up to the street. Sally Donovan, looking relaxed in jeans, a charcoal tee, and a suede jacket came tearing around the corner in runners. She skidded to a sharp stop when Sherlock emerged from the blackness and came to a stop.

She looked furious. “You’re a liar, Freak.”

“He’s not lying,” John stepped into the watery light near the end of the alley. “Gunshot wound to the left arm.”

Sherlock nodded, “The police are shooting at me. I’d like to file a report, preferably at the Yard.”

“You have no evidence that the police did this.” She snapped.

“I do have this.” He pulled a misshapen slug out of his pocket. “I doubled back to get it.” He tossed the thing to John. “I thought it might come in handy. Aside from which I wanted to keep it.”

She brought them inside. It was a shock to John that she would allow Sherlock within feet of her apartment, given what he would know about her by the time he left.

“Shot,” she paced in her spare, organized front room and spoke into her wireless phone. “Freak. Yes. He’s sitting on my recliner right now.” She stared at Sherlock and turned away. “Oh he’s in pain all right. John Watson is swearing he’s been shot.”

She hung up the phone and pointed it at Sherlock. “Don’t you budge from that chair, Freak.” Then she withdrew into a hallway. John did a quick assessment and determined Sherlock didn’t have the energy required to move from the chair, at that moment. Sherlock simply closed his eyes. John went to the kitchen and drew up a glass of water for Holmes. He brought it back, and was relieved when Sherlock drained it without any resistance. He seemed to have taken John’s diatribe of earlier seriously.

Sally returned in dress pants, a tasteful shirt, and a trimming jacket. She had her gun, badge, and attitude in place. Her reappearance was enough to get Sherlock on his feet again.

The Sergeant said, “Lestrade’s going to meet us. Freak has him in a pretty bad mood.” She checked her wall clock and reached out to the collar of Sherlock’s coat.

It was sudden and he pulled away from her fingers.

It made the Sergeant bare her teeth. “You can’t actually think I’m going to hurt you.” Her hand dropped down beside her. “You are unbalanced.”

John bristled, reached over, and yanked Sherlock’s coat aside. “You want to see? I wouldn’t be so hasty to call him unbalanced, if you find this in any way-”

“It’s bleeding,” she said. “It’s bleeding through his shirt.”

John froze and looked. Sherlock pulled his coat closed and considered the time.

“Sherlock, I have to-”

“When we’re there, John.” Sherlock sounded slightly thready. “Lestrade’s going to arrive very soon. I’d rather make this report once, and it’s important that no one else know I’m injured. It’s to our advantage that we keep this in confidence. My shooter should be hearing I’m in the building within minutes of my arrival. This is almost certainly our killer. He won’t waste time getting over there. He’ll need to know what I’ve figured out.”

“Wonderful planning,” John set his feet. “But last time I checked you had no medical degree. If you keep bleeding like this, you will need a transfusion in an actual hospital. Or you will go into shock. Again. It will be worse this time.”

“Freak doesn’t have a degree, does he?” she looked Sherlock over with a sneer. “You were too busy being a junkie, I thought.”

The knock at the door startled everyone but Holmes.

“Lestrade.”

Sherlock sighed, “We know.”

Glaring at him, Sally Donovan opened the door and let in the Detective Inspector. Lestrade stepped in and closed the door behind him. “Shot?”

“Yes.” Sherlock opened his arms and asked. “How can you be asking? On eight occasions Donovan mentioned I was shot. Honestly, Lestrade.”

“Well pardon me for having a hard time believing it,” Lestrade looked him over. “What are you on? What’s keeping you upright, right now?”

“The case,” Sherlock said harshly. “That’s keeping me upright. Two dead bodies.”

“He hasn’t even taken a painkiller.” John confirmed unhappily. “We need to get him over to Scotland Yard and see to him. He’s bleeding again.”

“That’s true,” Donovan confirmed.

“Then he needs a hospital.” Lestrade stepped up and reached a hand for Sherlock.

Holmes backed up. “Lestrade, we have a narrow window during which we can use what we know to our advantage. Everything is useful, right now. Think of this: the only people who know about my injury are in this room – sans Watson’s doctor-friend, who is at the apartment, currently. Pity she can’t bring me a fresh shirt.”

“You’d only bleed on it,” Watson pointed out over his crossed arms.

“-and the shooter, who, I can safely say, isn’t a trained sniper. We need to attack this now, while they’re still divided. One of them – and from the lack of another body on the ground, no one knows which one of them this was – told the police psychologist everything. If we give them enough time, we’ll either have another body, or we’ll lose this advantage.” He was tapping on his cell phone as he spoke. “And if you take me to hospital, I’ll refuse treatment, leave, and cab over to New Scotland Yard myself.”

Lestrade rubbed his eyes, already too tired to argue with Sherlock. “I don’t get how the senselessness of this isn’t occurring to you. You need a doctor.”

“I do,” Sherlock gave John a little push forward. “And I have a surgeon. Let’s go. It was fine when they were following me. Now that they’ve lost me, we’re giving them time to regroup.”

“But I had people following you.” Lestrade’s brows drew down. “I had units tail you for your safety. You’re sure that wasn’t my people, you saw?”

“A list of names.” Sherlock said. “And unless your people were on motorcycles and in plainclothes after dark, we’re not talking about the same police.”

“You must have so many enemies… it could have been anyone who shot at you,” Donovan snickered at him. “Why blame us?” She escorted them into the hallway.

“Boots.” Sherlock leaned his back against the wall beside her door, his eyes half-closed.

“What?” She asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, she snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Wake up, Freak. Answer me.”

“Hm. Sorry. Generally, answering you is a time sink. Pay attention. When I doubled back to pick the slug out of the brick at the restaurant I crossed over the trail of my pursuers twice,” Sherlock motioned at the bullet that John held up. “I found several partial prints, all indicating police issue boots.”

“Boots? How do you know they’re not out of some surplus shop?”

Sherlock dismissed this. “Three different sizes. The probability of all of them choosing the same type from surplus is lower than the current probability they’re police.”

They swept down the stairs toward the cars outside and Sherlock winced. He wasn’t feeling thrilled with riding in a police car. He got into the front seat, beside Lestrade, and pulled up his coat collar. John strongly suspected that Sherlock was only semi-conscious for the majority of the drive to Scotland Yard.

Once they got him inside, Watson took the medical supplies and brought Sherlock to a Men’s bathroom that Sherlock checked – stall by stall – was empty. Lestrade stepped inside and told officers in the hall to keep everyone else out. He rolled the bullet in his hand as Sherlock sat on the counter, as directed, and John pulled the coat from his shoulders.

“I don’t want to bleed into my coat, John,” Sherlock said succinctly. His tone dropped to something quite modest, “If you could do something about that, it would be appreciated.”

“I try, but you don’t cooperate. And put down the phone. Don’t look things up. I need your arm stationary for this.” Really, all this blood was getting to be a sincere worry for John. He didn’t know how to properly convey how dangerous this could be for Sherlock.

And it turned out that Sherlock could text almost as fast one handed. Astonishing. John got Sherlock’s shirt buttons undone and frowned at the soaked bandages. There was a problem here. It could become serious. They needed him resting. Strenuous activity was out of the question – all of this advice was sure to be ignored.

“I was shot at shortly after dark from a 50 degree downward angle. Apartments across from the restaurant. There are two, perhaps three, apartments which would have afforded a good line. Two-ten reported a break-in. Nothing was taken. Nothing was disturbed apart from the window being opened. Risky. These people are desperate to stop me, meaning they’ve seen my work.” He clucked his tongue as Watson cut the bandages away.

A fresh trickle of blood spilled down to his elbow and Sherlock eyed it disapprovingly before Watson could sop it up. He began measures to control the bleeding wishing there were measures to control Sherlock. John noticed that Holmes shivered under direct pressure, and the Men’s Room wasn’t cold enough to cause him discomfort. “You can feel that?”

“Yes.”

This was only an hour and 25 minutes after a three hour dose of prilocaine. Odd. “Studies say individuals with ADHD are resistant to medicines like lidocaine and prilocaine. Have you ever been diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Dis-”

Sherlock squared on him. “It’s not relevant, right now.” He sat back and looked at the ceiling. “I should look at the apartment. It’s likely there’s something that they’ve missed, some evidence. However, leaving the Yard, at the moment, is begging for a shot between the eyes.”

Lestrade set his hands on his hips. “You’re not reassuring, Sherlock.”

Hearing this, Sherlock’s brows bounced up. “And you’ve only noticed this tonight?”

“I’m only saying it tonight. Difference,” Lestrade told him, which, at the very least, made Sherlock lean back and listen. “What you’re laying out is making me wonder about handing this slug over for analysis. The initial report on the crowbar isn’t as promising as we’d have liked, either. Don’t know if that’s simply the killer being careful, or if we’re facing some kind of cover-up here. Seems like, pulling this off in the Yard, there are more people than the killer involved.”

Now Sherlock was genuinely pleased. “You are correct. Continue.”

“The crowbar… firstly, we established that it’s actual logged evidence from a cold case-”

Sherlock looked at John as if conveying some message. John utterly missed it, but then, his hands were full right then.

“-and it’s hopelessly contaminated now. The blood checks out. The perp wore police issue gloves – very common around here as you’d imagine. The gloves were either new, or recently cleaned.”

“A sign of premeditation.”

“I agree. But we have nothing more to go on from the crowbar.” Lestrade pointed out.

Now Sherlock began to smile a little. John glanced up at that. “What do you know?”

“The killer swung down. He’s taller than the victim. Not terribly difficult as the psychologist was 5’10, but now we know that he had some involvement with the cold case that gave us the crowbar from this crime. He knew where to find it in a hurry. Even if there was an argument that sent him after it extemporaneously, he’d already thought to wear gloves that weren’t contaminated by appreciable signs of his identity – his dog’s or cat’s fur, his saliva – et cetera. He knows processes well, he’s methodical. This killer paused to clean and bag the crowbar after using it.” Sherlock eyed Lestrade, who had resumed staring at the slug in his hand. “And now I need two lists.”

“I understand that,” Lestrade said. He held up the bullet. “I’ll see this makes it through the lab without tampering, Sherlock. I think I’ll have Anderson babysit it while it’s there.”

“I want it back.”

“We wouldn’t want to walk away with one of your toys.”

“Naturally,” Sherlock said in reply.

“Donovan’s on the door. Stay here until I get back – should only be about ten or fifteen minutes.” Lestrade walked out and paused to speak with Donovan, who, for her part, looked very irritated that she’d been drafted to guard the Freak.

“You didn’t tell him about the letter.” John said quietly. “Isn’t there a chance this is still sitting in the mail room on this floor somewhere, you know, going between offices in the Met, rather than outside the building?”

“Yes. And we’ll be looking for it as soon as the bleeding stops,” Sherlock said breathlessly. It had taken a lot of his energy to keep a front up for Lestrade. He pulled up his knees and sagged to the wall now. His face was shock white.

“Drink this.” John opened a sugary orange juice that Sarah had thoughtfully thrown into the bag. She’d dropped in a four-pack and Watson knew they’d need every bottle.

Sherlock cracked an eye open, took the container, and held it in his hand, cradled between his long thighs and his chest. He shuddered as Watson cleaned and disinfected the wound.

By the time he was binding the injury again – this time with bandages on the skin, and a second bandage over the shirt for added pressure, and to protect the coat as he’d been asked – Sherlock was finishing the drink. He tossed the empty into a pail a good distance away.

John found himself surprised. “Ah. That’s good. Did you play basketball in school, Sherlock?”

This seemed to mystify Holmes. “No.”

“You have the energy for it.”

“I do?”

“You do,” John laughed at the incredulous look on his friend’s face. “And the aim.”

“Organized sports-”

“Not your area.” John guessed, and then, seeing from the look on Sherlock’s face that he was correct, added. “Other people. Not your area.”

Sherlock’s unfocused green gaze found the door to the Men’s room and stayed there.

“Doesn’t matter,” John said lightly. He pulled down Sherlock’s coat and put his hand down the left sleeve. There was some small trace of dampness there, but it was nothing a good dry-cleaning wouldn’t manage. He pulled his hand out, missed Sherlock’s glance at his fingertips, and pulled the coat back into place. “You do fine, Sherlock.”

“Do I?”

“You know you learn quickly. I think you get better with practice.”

His lips compressed a moment. Then he said. “Thanks.”

“Try standing. Go slowly.”

Sherlock got down from the counter with some care. Some, for him, was a greater amount of respect for his situation than he would normally ever demonstrate. He leaned on the counter. “Coat.”

“What about it?”

He shut his green eyes. “Heavy.”

“You’re getting weaker.” John told him. “We need to get you a drink of water.” John looked around him for some kind of container, searching the bag, not noticing that Sherlock took the juice bottle back out of the garbage, uncapped it, and filled it with water.

John pointed out, “That’s filthy.”

“So is sharing needles,” Sherlock said. “And yet I live.”

Now John’s arms fell limp beside him. It was best not to press him on that. Over time, he got the sense that Sherlock would tell him. Whatever it was, John would keep it in confidence. He could be trusted with secrets, particularly the shameful ones.

Holmes’ downed two full bottles of water before chucking the bottle back into the bin from which he’d fished it. “Let’s go.”

“We’re supposed to wait for-”

“I know,” Sherlock caught the door handle and paused. “If we did, he’d be disappointed.” He smiled happily and pulled the door open.

“Get back inside, Freak.” Donovan stepped in the way.

Sherlock shook his head, “I need a hospital. Take me outside for a cab.”

“Oh my God, he can be taught.” Donovan peeked around the side of Sherlock at John. “Or did you type him up some new command lines or something?”

John looked from Sherlock to his shoes. Holmes was, of course, lying to her, but it was plausible, given how frail Sherlock was acting – and in fact was. So the Sergeant led them along toward the front of the building. Sherlock deviated from her course so suddenly, he had to reach around the corner, grab John and pull him down the same hallway. They travelled at a quick clip from there.

“Mailroom,” Sherlock said quietly. He waited for an officer on her cellphone in the room to depart before he and John slipped inside together. For a moment a kind of dysphoria seemed to pass over Sherlock. He was in pain, weak, and leaned to the wall heavily.

John looked around the large, square room. It was heavily shelved, white, and badly lit. The pitiless glare from bare overhead bulbs made Sherlock’s bloodless skin seem iridescent. Watson walked further into the piles of outgoing and incoming mail, glancing at the packaging, tape, and labelling station. “What’s his name?”

“He wouldn’t put it on there.” Sherlock panted from the doorway. “Just the office address. He’s worried anything with his name would be intercepted.” He pushed from the wall and brought up the directory of offices in the building. He tapped on his cell to find the requisite office address, and then tossed the phone to John.

They spent 20 minutes in searching, sorting through a room stacked high with mail. At that hour of the night, the mailroom was deserted. Sherlock certainly helped to narrow down the candidates, quickly discounting envelopes with typed addresses, even though John checked through them all, surreptitiously. Sherlock shook his head. “He didn’t sit at the computer and print an envelope, he wrote these addresses. It’s either gone, hasn’t been mailed within the building, or…. We need to go to his office. At worst, this thing may still be tucked somewhere on his desk. He’s meticulous and detail oriented. Even in trivial actions there was forethought. Did you see how he laid out his clothes and towels in the shower room?”

“No, Sherlock,” John guffawed. “I was distracted by the honking big pool of blood he left on the floor. You’re unbelievable.”

“Steadily.” Sherlock smiled and diverted through the door.

Sneaking around the building after Lestrade has been looking high and low for a sign of you was a difficult proposition. For one thing, Donovan didn’t, for a moment, believe they’d exited and gone to any hospital. She’d also checked in with the area hospitals for a newly arrived gunshot wound. Finding nothing, she’d reported them loose in the building. Sherlock had already realized this, and texted Lestrade to come meet them on the way. He looked relieved when he saw Sherlock’s swinging coat turn a corner in front of him.

“You look ghastly,” he told Holmes. “Dead pale.”

“I’m working on it.” Sherlock said in retort.

“I’m working on it.” John corrected, and there was no argument there.

“Need to go to the dead man’s office. Need my list of names.” Sherlock would have rubbed his hands together, if he had been using his left arm anymore. Its most comfortable position was in his pocket, which was where he left both of his hands at the moment.

“Done and done,” Lestrade handed Sherlock a folded slice of paper from his pocket. Sherlock took it in his left hand and unfolded with his right. The names were handwritten, but that was about all John could see before Sherlock folded the paper again. Lestrade said. “Follow me.”

“I know where it is.” Sherlock told the man distractedly as they started out. “I’m just using your company for the simple security it-”

An Officer clocked Sherlock hard on his right shoulder as they walked through a narrow hallway. He blew past John with a grumble of ‘Freakshow’.

Sherlock glanced after the man. “Who was that?”

“Sergeant Dalton Hayes.” Lestrade’s distrust was something to behold. When the man vanished into the desks, he glanced over Sherlock. “You okay?”

“No… not involved. Let’s continue.” Sherlock noted.

John ducked inside and pulled even with Sherlock on the left. Holmes moved to admit him, and, shoulder-to-shoulder, they took up the entire hall, but John wasn’t about to risk Sherlock taking a knock on his left shoulder akin to the one he’d taken on the right. It would start the bleeding again, and very possibly render Sherlock unconscious. John glanced up, “They’d have really tipped their hat there.”

“And it’s the wrong shoulder.” Sherlock said quietly.

Only when they arrived at the office did John finally find out the name of the psychologist was Jerry Ballard. He paused by the door to read the nameplate. “Jerry. Jerry Ballard,” he said aloud.

“Does knowing his name help you, John?” Sherlock straightened from the desk he was already rifling through. He said it like he’d been wondering about that from the very beginning of the case.

“A little. Yes.”

“Good. Get to work.” Sherlock directed toward a line of cabinets along the wall. But he didn’t look up. He was too busy checking for any envelope that met his deductive expectations.

“His case files?” John glanced at Lestrade, “I can’t look at those.”

“You’re a doctor,” Sherlock said, “consult. Find out if any of these names have files.” He laid the folded list of names – one list the people involved in cold cases, particularly the year the box with the crowbar had arrived, and the other the list of names of police who had been assigned to follow him.

“Everyone has a file.” Lestrade opened his hands.

“Then no one’s will be missing.” Sherlock’s fingers flicked in air, “John, if you please.”

John got it that he wasn’t diving into the files, just confirming none of the following had been removed. Now, if the file was empty, that would be something to report.

“Here,” Lestrade said. “They might have taken their last entry. Look for anything ripped out of the binders.”

No pen impressions.

Notepad removed or disposed of.

John glanced at the noise as Sherlock pushed a bunch of notepads onto the floor. Holmes had dismissed them. He swept around the desk to sit in the chair and plant his elbows in the armrests as he stared across at the psychologist’s empty chair. His fingertips balanced against one another, right under his lips.

Chair level at highest setting.

Seated person short.

Sherlock got up, unsteadily.

“You’re looking pale.” John said quietly. Sherlock meandered over to look at the lists Lestrade had written.

Melody Doyle.

Sherlock glanced up at John. “Anyone missing?”

“Nothing so far.” John shook his head. His voice dropped. “You need a break, Sherlock.”

Sherlock went to sit in the psychologist’s chair. He pulled the shrink’s laptop across the desk toward him. It took him tens of minutes to put together the password. A thrill went through him when he saw an IM window minimized on the desktop. He maximized it to the Desktop and read.

“John.”

John walked over and leaned over Sherlock’s shoulder.

MDoyle: Hey, Jerry. You still in?

JBallard: Yep. You need something, Mel?

“M Doyle?” John didn’t have the list with him.

“Melody Doyle. And look at the timestamp. Ballard had seen her before, so he was comfortable shortening her name.” Sherlock checked the appointments and closed the laptop. “They were on good terms. She walked in without an appointment.”

“I’ll check for her file.” John headed back to Lestrade and the cabinets. Sure enough, when he checked the papers, Melody Doyle was on there under the heading Assigned to SH.

Sherlock rose and turned to look out the window. John could see his smile reflected in the glass. As dizzy and muzzy as his head had to feel, he had the thread they would pull to unravel this whole messy affair. Then Sherlock shut his eyes.

And John had him around the ribs. He really wasn’t much aware of moving, just that Sherlock pulled himself to rights in a swirl of coat and was forced to drop to his knees on the carpet. Lestrade hurried across the office to close the door.

“He can’t take much more of this.” Lestrade exhaled heavily, glad all the blinds on this particular glass office had been closed. “Neither can I, really. Is he awake?”

John listened to the rasp of Sherlock breathing. He was in pain. “That was bad,” Sherlock said between unsteady breaths.

“I don’t think anyone noticed,” John noted. “We’ve been in here a while and not drawing much attention.” He reached down and pulled back the collar of Sherlock’s coat.

Sherlock blinked away stars and sat back on his heels. He let the coat slip down so he could check the bandaging on his arm. It was clean. If he was bleeding, John noted that it hadn’t made it through the first bandage yet.

“There’s no colour to your lips, at all.” John noticed. “You’re like paper. Sit in the chair and do nothing.” He pulled a sugary drink from the bag beside the desk and slid it to Sherlock. “This isn’t rocket fuel, Sherlock.”

Sherlock snapped the cap. “How long do you figure I have?”

“Two hours,” John told him. “Tops. After that, if you can string words together into a cogent sentence, we’ll be very lucky. You need a transfusion.”

“I’m actually starting to like these.” Sherlock sank into the psychologist’s chair with the drink and frowned. “And John?”

“What?”

“Needing a blood transfusion is dreary.”

John turned away with a chuckle. “Welcome to the human race, big boy.”

“We need to round up Melody Doyle,” Sherlock said after getting through half the drink.

“No one on the list is missing from here.” Lestrade closed the last cabinet drawer and saw Sherlock had spread the contents of Ballard’s briefcase on the desk.

“Nothing terribly helpful to the case here,” Sherlock cocked his head. “Unless you want to know something about his political affiliations, his personal filing system, preference for milled paper, or his fixation with,” he picked up a pen with a floating wedding party inside, “the royal families of Europe.” Sherlock dropped the pen with a thud.

“Anything else?” John asked.

Sherlock blew out a puff of air and said. “He’s not a bad hand at origami.”

“You’re right. Not helpful,” John dusted his hands and tugged his jumper down. He turned to Lestrade. “Will Doyle be in at this hour?”

“No,” Lestrade said. “We can go across town to get her.”

“She won’t be home.” Sherlock said flatly. “She’s with the others.” He got up slowly, carefully, and found that it wasn’t so bad as long as his depleted blood was filled with sugar. His fingers flew across the keypad of his cellphone. “Though… she should be heading by soon.”

John looked down onto Sherlock’s cell phone, and sucked in a breath. “Are you sure?”

Sherlock had paused at: ‘I know you didn’t want JB to die. Come to the Yard. We should talk. –SH’

“She could run.” Lestrade said. He’d also come to Sherlock’s side and was looking down at the same phone with a worried expression.

“Really? One of her colleagues just killed two men. I know she’s involved. One of us is going to get to her. Where would she run?” Holmes, whose pain seemed to have made him restless, got to his feet. “The question is Will she be able to get away from the others before her shift begins?”

“So… we may have time for you to rest.” John suggested.

“I should read personnel files on the others.”

“While resting,” John agreed with this idea. “It would be great if you would do this in a hospital while getting a transfusion.”

“Not a good idea for me to leave this building. If we were to,” Sherlock got to his feet slowly. His head did a serious loop. Words failed. He lost the thread of his sense. “John.”

“Right here.” John told him. “Do you know your blood type?”

There was a second’s hesitation. It even made Lestrade turn around on his way to the door. Sherlock blinked, “Universal recipient.”

“Any problems with Rh D antigens?” John asked.

Sherlock shook his head.

“You probably won’t be able to tell me this by the time we get you in for a transfusion.” John sighed and headed over to join Lestrade. “Personnel records? He’s going to need a general background on these people.”

“He’s not doing so well,” Lestrade stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “He knew the answer to that one, and he couldn’t put it together.”

“Can we also get water up here?” John rubbed his eyes. “And coffee?”

“Yeah,” Lestrade looked back at where Sherlock had slumped in the chair, his green eyes half-closed, and his eyelids damp with sweat. “Yeah, sure. Donovan will be outside this door. No one will disturb you.”

John spent about 45 minutes seated at the opposite side of the desk staring at Sherlock. Moments before he’d started this vigil, he’d called home and woken Sarah. She had fallen asleep on the couch watching television. They exchanged a progress report regarding Sherlock’s condition. John ended the call and sat monitoring Sherlock. He was asleep. The water, coffee, and personnel records came, but it didn’t wake Sherlock.

Donovan pushed a cart in and whispered a confidential, “Would you know if he was dead?” as she stepped back outside.

John closed the door with his foot and wheeled the cart across the office. He set the water in front of Sherlock and sipped his coffee. Half-way through the cup he took Sherlock’s pulse a third time and Holmes’ green eyes slid open.

“The personnel files are here.”

“They’ve been for a while.” Sherlock leaned forward stiffly. He reached for the top folder on the pile. John uncapped his bottled water and pinned the file down with one hand. He pulled it toward him and gave Sherlock the water instead.

Seated across from the genius, he started reading the file.

“Six years on the force, and he’s never worked a cold case,” John said.

“Throw that one on the floor, we’re done with it.” Sherlock told him. “Next.”

John laid the file on the floor, and recognized this as Sherlock’s system at home in the apartment too. He started the next file. Pretty soon, they had cross referenced the list down to six people. Melody’s file sat under Sherlock’s right hand. She also had no tie to cold cases, not to mention the fact she was only 5’5 and wouldn’t have had the height advantage indicated by the skull fracture in the psychologist’s head.

“Do you like any of these guys?” John asked, “As suspects?”

Holmes reached forward to the pile of six folders, but before he chose, his phone made a soft ping that indicated an incoming text message. He leaned back and flexed his left hand. “She’s written me back.” He laid the phone down and slid it across to Watson.

‘not in the yard. if I’m seen there, I’m done. meet at the pink case. come alone.’

“The pink case,” John looked up. “Where you found the pink case belonging to-”

“The ‘pink case’ as in A Study in Pink from your blog, Watson – that same building in Brixton where Jennifer Wilson was found, murdered. Remember Donovan? They all read it?” Sherlock cocked his head a little. “Come alone. Do you have the gun?”

“They tried to snipe you.” John shook his head. “I’ll never even get to draw the Browning.”

“Then we’ll need Lestrade to pull a team together. What’s keeping Lestrade? We have to take her in, John. Her face will betray most of our enemies here.” Sherlock smiled and finished his bottled water. He typed a text out to Lestrade, and then replied to Melody Doyle.

‘Will be there within the hour.’

A moment later the reply came. ‘One hour.’

John got to his feet. “I really should have brought my gun.”

The door opened as if to punctuate the feeling. John took a step back and right. It put him between the door and Holmes. Lestrade hurried in. “Grab your coats, boys. We have to go. I’ve heard Commander Snow is having a conniption over this case. He’s firmly on the side of accidental death. He’s on his way. I’ll probably lose my job if you’re in the building when he arrives.”

“Excellent timing. We need to head across town,” Sherlock got up with a wince and picked up his coat with his right hand. However, his eyes prickled with the effort just putting the coat on again.

“Melody Doyle wants to meet at the abandoned place from A Study in Pink. Or so we figure from her text message reply to Sherlock.” John said confidentially. He rubbed a tired eye and glanced back at his friend.

Sherlock sighed, hands on his hips. The left hand trembled a little. “We’ll have to take the risk. Donovan and Lestrade will be enough.”

“Well, let’s hurry up about it,” Lestrade said. “Snow is close, I’m told. I would consider it mild to say that he despises everything you stand for, Sherlock.”

They hurried out of the office, Lestrade signalling that Donovan should follow. She rolled her eyes but hurried behind them. Sherlock held his own, having rested and hydrated some. On an overhanging staircase, Lestrade froze. “I can hear him below. He’s in the lobby.”

Sherlock slumped against the wall. “Mm. Stairs. The fatter the cat, the less likely the stairs.” Almost as soon as he said this, the bells summoning the elevator down to the first floor sounded. Sherlock started coolly down the stairs. There was no sign of the Commander or his men by the time the foursome reached the lobby and made their way, calmly, to the parking garage.

By the look on Lestrade’s face, he wasn’t accustomed to anyone speaking that way about the police brass. He wasn’t precisely entertained, but John already knew there were times when Sherlock’s utter lack of respect for unproven authority was pure liberation.

When they got into the car, Sherlock took the back seat. John climbed in beside him and watched him slump to the headrest in front of him.

Lestrade paused on the way up the ramp. “Eh, look alive back there, Sherlock.”

“It’s best if I don’t.” Sherlock said quietly. “They’ll be watching the building.”

They wedged lower behind the seats as Lestrade pulled out onto the street. It was their good fortune the nearest lights were with them. Sherlock crawled up into his seat again and slumped on the headrest. John reached out and pushed the collar of his coat aside. His skin felt cold. The big artery in his throat fluttered. “This is such a bad idea.”

“Keep it clean in the back seat, Freak.” Donovan snapped. “Don’t go bleeding on the leather.”

Sherlock’s tone was acid, “Stop the car.”

“What?” Lestrade began to slow.

“Stop the car. I’ve decided there is less risk going in with one sidearm and focused than two with Sergeant Donovan running on at the mouth.”

John shook his head. “Let it go, Sherlock.”

But he didn’t. His green eyes glanced up at the woman, full of the same stamp of simmering resentfulness he usually reserved for Mycroft. “Honestly, you should save some of that energy for Anderson. He’s much more likely to appreciate your efforts.”

Donovan’s teeth flashed. She started to swivel in her seat and swing an arm to reach for Sherlock, but as she turned, her gaze bounced off John. Whatever she saw there stopped her cold. Good enough for John. He levelled with her, “Tonight he’s been shot, spent who knows how long evading armed assassins, and refused a transfusion to solve this case. So help me… don’t touch him.”

Sherlock’s eyes were wide with surprise that even Donovan couldn’t ignore. “See that, Freak?” You’ve made a friend.” She turned to John. “He’s not worth it.”

John leaned away from her and returned to monitoring Sherlock, whose steady green gaze watched him with childlike intensity. It was unnerving. “You’ve got to try to calm down. You’re burning through blood sugar and your pulse-”

“I’m thinking,” Sherlock replied. “I need all that blood and sugar in my head.”

Lestrade poked at the glove box and tossed something in the back seat. John caught it without the benefit of really seeing it. It was a chocolate bar. He tucked it in his pocket. Sherlock wasn’t going to eat it, and arguing about it would waste his energy.

“Slow down,” Sherlock told Lestrade. He directed the car as they closed on the house. They parked a couple of blocks back. Sherlock got out onto the street and scanned the still, silent houses. He shut his eyes and thought for a moment. “This way.”

“This might be,” John turned from where he jogged after Sherlock, “a little unorthodox.”

Mercifully, now that they were close to the scene, Donovan went eerily silent and slunk in their wake with her gun out and down. She was remarkably nimble, John thought, like some kind of heavily armed stoat. He felt better seeing her concentration. But he just didn’t trust her to protect Sherlock. So he clung close to their medical case as Sherlock slid through the dark edges of gardens, more shadow than substance on his approach. They stole quietly through gates together. Sherlock flicked his long body over a fence with catlike grace and kept moving. John swore to himself and found a way to follow after. Sherlock couldn’t keep moving like that. It would tear the injury. Inside his arm, either the big vein or artery was weakened and leaky.

Back steps loomed ahead of them. They’d been moving faster than John suspected. They kept to wells of shadow and gloom in the back of the house, Sherlock waiting for the cloud cover to billow so the jagged patchwork of streetlights could get no help from the moon. Then he crossed to the house. Lestrade was beside him, gun out at the ready. It was very dark when they went.

John and Donovan skirted the dilapidated garden wall next. In the back of the house, Sherlock ignored the door. He first checked carefully through windows.

It was Lestrade who opened the door. He did this according to police procedure while Sherlock rested his mistreated body against the peeling and cobwebby wood house slats. The door made a protracted creek. Lestrade was inside, clearing the downstairs with Donovan. Because he wasn’t armed himself, John caught hold of Sherlock and assisted him inside in a great hurry. It was best to stay with the people who were armed, though this drew a strange look from Sherlock.

“Where is she?” John asked as they wandered the ground floor. He interrupted Sherlock skulking along the walls and staring at the floor as if it were a holographic picture that changed with each angle of view.

Glitter.

“She’s upstairs,” Sherlock said quietly. He indicated the knobby wood post at the foot of the stair, but Watson didn’t have any idea what he saw. Then he truly looked at the post. The dust there was disturbed. Sherlock pointed at a tiny flicker of light on the fourth stair. It shone, if you moved just so.

John didn’t get it until Sherlock leaned in and said in his ear. “She’s picking her nail polish. There’s a small trail of glitter through the front door, leading up.”

Nervous.

Lestrade jerked his chin at the staircase and took the lead. John followed Sherlock with Donovan right behind him. The stairs were stout, as he remembered them, but there was no way to avoid all noise. If she planned to kill them – John slipped around Sherlock’s shoulder and flanked Lestrade. God forbid anything happened to the man that would cause him to drop the gun, but if it did, it was best John be there to grab it.

But there was no gunfire.

Melody Doyle stood on the top floor. She was small, slender, and dressed in blue jeans and a white, long-sleeved blouse. Her runners were set in the same place where, months ago, a woman had taken her last gasp. The toe of her shoe balanced on Rache, which held a double meaning now, both Rachel, and, thanks to Sherlock, the dying woman’s ultimate revenge. Though perhaps that last part’s more due to me, John thought. In any event, though she heard them coming, Melody had her back to the door as they came through.

“Mel,” Lestrade exhaled quietly. With that one utterance he looked sapped.

Melody turned as if struck by a blow, horrified to see no less than the Detective Inspector coming into the room with Holmes. “Sir,” she said breathlessly. “Why are you here? I don’t-” then she saw Donovan and gawped. “But you hate him, Sally.”

“And Jerry’s dead,” Sally Donovan’s dark eyes were flintier than her almost breathless voice. “And that’s on you, Mel.”

Tears blurred the woman’s features for a moment. She ducked her head and said, “Yeah, I know. I know!” She dissolved into childlike sobs and struggled out to say. “I had no idea he could – I was ready to sit in prison, Sally! Please believe me.”

Sherlock glanced over the woman. Her hands shivered; glittery paint on the nails pocked and incomplete. But she held his gaze as he spoke to her, “It’s why you went to Jerry Ballard. You’d had enough. Why?”

“I’m no innocent,” she clapped a hand to her chest. “But I just didn’t see it coming, Mr. Holmes, believe me. I didn’t dream Jerry would die tonight. Me? It… that would make sense. But I’d convinced myself I was being careful with him. How could they be so sure what I was doing, so fast?” She sobbed and wiped her dripping nose with a tissue she pulled from her jean’s pockets.

Socio-emotional.

“Stop that,” Sherlock waved the waterworks away since, no matter the intention, the police psychologist was dead. “Look at me.” He reached out both hands and set them gently on the woman’s upper arms. “Look at me now.”

She could hardly avoid it, with him looming so close over her.

Sherlock stared at her face as if there was nothing more pressing, “Danny Palmer. Vincent Lloyd. Look at me. David – no Dave – Graham.”

“What are you doing?” she asked him, feebly.

“Don’t have time,” his gaze flicked back toward the hall and John knew, at once, that Sherlock had seen something – had some indication – of the trap they’d stepped in.

“Shut the door,” John scurried past Donovan to close and lock it and then looked frantically around the space Jennifer Wilson had died in for another way out. Just the windows. That was all, and the curious had stripped them of the paper that had once covered them.

“Tony Butler-”

The first shot caused the tinkle of glass. The round skated between Sherlock and Melody. The next cut through Melody Doyle from just under her ribcage, up through her diaphragm, into her lungs, and out between two ribs.

In the war, John had discovered that his somewhat short, square frame was capable of irrational strength. Right as he reached Sherlock, caught him by the coat and fairly flung him to the most sheltered wall, John was feeling unnaturally strong. A bullet buzzed his forehead. Melody pawed at her side arm as her mouth poured out blood. She looked like an ornamental fountain in some vampire movie, almost unreal except John had seen this horror movie before, in the middle of combat. He caught her as she started to fall to the floor, and he took her gun for her.

Second bullet passed right over the curve of his back as he got to his feet and rushed the window. He’d seen the muzzle discharge and shot straight down it without thinking. A pair of bullets flew by him. The one just below his ear burned like a bee sting. The other was far, far worse, even if it was about 10 centimeters off his left shoulder. An explosion of pain through John’s shoulder and chest rocked his memory. He snapped upright and shot down a muzzle flash, unable to determine if the enemy had changed position since firing, unable to hear anything above the roar of combat that had scooped every other awareness out of his head.

“JOHN!”

Except for that deep, belling voice. John threw himself flat on the wall between windows. Holy crap! What was I thinking? Nothing. He had committed a cardinal sin – he hadn’t thought. Sherlock was bound to be nearly catatonic on the couch for days trying to work this out. Shots still striped the room, making John’s position seem very insecure. He, alone, was standing. He wasn’t sure the wall behind his back had enough stopping power for a bullet.

Speaking of which – how were the others?

Donovan was crouched down like a cat, half over Doyle. She had bead on the door, though they weren’t taking fire from there. Lestrade was at another window changing his clip when the firing stopped.

“John,” Sherlock said breathily. “Really?”

“Sorry, sorry,” John bent low and scurried to the wall at the base of which Sherlock huddled, very pale, and very terrified.

“What kind of theatrics…” he couldn’t continue. “They won’t come in. They know they succeeded with Doyle. They suspect they hit me-”

“What?”

“A bullet slid over the back of my neck. It happened right as you picked me up and tossed me here,” Sherlock’s voice had the quality of entertained disbelief, “like a paper plane.”

John caught hold of Sherlock’s hair and yanked his head forward. He stuck his hand down the back of the coat and felt for blood. He’d seen men shot who hadn’t realized it at first. “Honestly! Let go my hair, John!” Sherlock groused, but his incredulity almost made it into amazed laughter. “I’m fine.”

“Shut up, Freak!” Donovan hissed. “How can you laugh?!” She opened her bloody hands.

Sherlock wasn’t bleeding. John let him up and crabbed to Donovan next. She looked hazardous. John thought it best to keep speaking to her calmly. “Easy. Easy Sergeant, he doesn’t mean anything by it. People react differently to stress. Some cry, some laugh-”

“Do something for Mel.” The woman said urgently. John ignored the demand. Donovan had blood from elbow to wrist – not her own. He checked around her, quickly, and found a hole in her jacket, but it was dry. There was no wound and no blood to accompany the bullet hole. Shooting into a darkened room was never as easy as it seemed, not even with night vision goggles.

“Do something for Mel, Dr. Watson.”

John moved on to Lestrade who looked up from his phone call for a terse. “I’m good. Mind Sherlock.” But he didn’t try to hinder John in looking for wounds either. Lestrade didn’t have a single scratch or drop of blood on him. John found this remarkable. He’d crossed the room only shortly after John had charged the window…. Then again, having a fool drawing fire away from you did help.

“Please,” Sally Donovan said thickly. John turned in her direction. She rocked to settle back on her heels and look down at the small blonde woman who must have been a friend of hers.

“I’m sorry,” John said quietly. He’d seen the light go out of the woman’s eyes as he eased her to the floor. John knew death when it stared him in the face. He put a hand over Donovan’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’m truly sorry.”

Sherlock sat with his back to a wall. His eyes were lightly closed. John crossed unsteadily back to his friend. His leg ached in dull throbs. His head spun with pain, putting him slightly off balance. John had never experienced anything like the storm that had struck when the bullet soared by his shoulder. It shook him that a round that hadn’t come near hitting him, could cause him this much trouble. And... and it was amazing how running through a hail of gunfire will make muscles ache. Or maybe he owed that to catapulting Sherlock across the room like a dart to a board.

John picked up Sherlock’s hand and took a pulse against his wrist watch. Sherlock didn’t open his eyes. He murmured, “They could not rest until Doyle had been executed. They’d figured her out, of course. Look at her, John – glittery nail polish; hearts all over her jewellery; she’s got a unicorn tattooed on her ankle. The woman had a white-hot core of naiveté. There were clear signs she broke ranks and ran to the shrink, physical signs.” He indicated the body over which Donovan silently wept. “Her nails are new. She had them done tonight to celebrate.”

“Lower your voice Sherlock,” John muttered to him.

“Have I not?”

He had, actually, but his words had the potential to ignite a firestorm in this room. He redirected, “So Melody Doyle saw herself as a canvas of sorts. How she was feeling was reflected in what she wore, or how she styled her hair.”

Sherlock looked up at him, “Very good. A person like Doyle should not be involved in a cabal of any kind. She’s a book, even to an amateur. She fundamentally misunderstood her environment.”

John’s fingers moved in response to the glide of Sherlock’s tendons. He flexed his hands. John watched as Sherlock squeezed a fist and stretched his fingers absently… because his hands were going numb and his pulse growing fast. John asked the man. “Didn’t understand what?”

“That while she was right – culture is vexingly built upon personal relationships,” his eyes drifted open, “she was wrong. Every relationship is a balance sheet. The losses are cut.”

John worked to wrap the coat around Sherlock. His temperature would be dropping. It was important to keep him warm.

“John.”

“Not much longer. We won’t be much long-”

“It has nothing to do with the time,” Sherlock’s eyes glittered with the onset of shock. “What you did there… you must never do again.”

John ducked his head and nodded.

Sherlock eased himself into a corner like a miserable animal biding its time.

John left him and returned to Lestrade. He cut a wide circle around the pool of blood soaking the floor, and seeping into Rache. “Units are coming,” the Detective Inspector said when he looked up.

“I need to get him lying down somewhere, Lestrade. He’s going into shock.”

Lestrade fixed his stare on John and grumbled. “I’m going into shock. What in the hell was that, Watson.”

“She dropped her gun-”

“And you sure as hell knew how to use it,” Lestrade said. “You’re aware that was suicidal?”

“No,” John shook his head and would have said more, except for the fact he was cut off by a loud rap on the door downstairs which caused John to whip the sidearm back out in its direction. He lowered the gun slowly and made to hand it over to Lestrade.

“No keep it,” Lestrade told him. “But keep it out of sight, John.”

John went to sit beside Sherlock. “I think it’s time we took you to hospital, Sherlock. An ambulance will be coming here, almost certainly. We’re going to get you aboard and start a transfusion.”

“No, thank you,” Sherlock sighed. “I’d rather lose a little blood than have my head blown off in a London hospital. These officers aren’t geniuses, John. I’ll round the rest up soon enough. They are clever though. Police have the best minds for crime.”

The police entering the upstairs fell silent as they found Melody Doyle lying dead. The stiff faces and outpouring of regret made the perfect cover for Sherlock. Hand against the wall to support him, he crept out of the room. John walked behind him, a hand buried in Sherlock’s coat lest he black out on the stairs. It would be a shame to break such a good nose. Molly Hooper, for one, would be devastated.

Lestrade caught up to them as they reached the porch. “Don’t wander off, boys,” he told them both. “You’re marked men. Well, maybe not yourself, Dr. Watson.”

“I need to go back to my notes,” Sherlock muttered. He reached up to rub his blurry eyes.

“Yeah, well it’s going to be a while.” Lestrade pointed at the ambulance that had pulled up. “Take him there.”

“Thank God,” John sighed and leaned heavily on the rail on the way down to greet paramedics.

It was well into the night when they were able to leave. Sherlock actually slept in the back of the ambulance. He’d long ago passed the point of simple irascibility; now his exhaustion laid waste to all resistance. John snoozed seated beside the pallet where Sherlock had collapsed. John, however, woke at every sound and passing voice. The scene was busy, and they were well guarded, but it was a bad situation. John was aware they didn’t know which police were hunting them. Lestrade stayed outside with several of his most trusted officers. Donovan even opened the door at one point – John had gotten up to change over the intravenous bag to blood, something the paramedics were comfortable with him doing. The long red line extending into Sherlock’s arm stopped whatever she’d been about to say while it was still in her throat. She set down a steaming cup and shut the door.

Tea. She’d brought him tea.

John’s hands shook on the Styrofoam, but the warmth invaded his cells and sustained him. He waited, watching the bag fade slowly into Sherlock’s body.

When the door opened next, John was checking Sherlock’s blood pressure. The so-called Consulting Detective was awake and finishing off the last of John’s tea – cold as it was. With blood back in his system, he was thirsty, even hungry. Sherlock glanced up at Lestrade’s face in the doorway. John looked too, and marvelled that Lestrade didn’t look tired. It was amazing.

“How are you?” Lestrade asked Sherlock.

“Ready,” Sherlock replied. He picked up his coat and pulled it on. “Shall we?”

“He’s okay?” Lestrade asked John.

“No. He’s doing better,” John said, “but that’s one pint, and he needs more than one. We need to keep him from bleeding.”

“That’s what I had in mind.” Lestrade said. He opened the door more widely. “Come with me, both of you. And don’t talk to anyone.”

John wasn’t sure what this meant. He climbed out of the warm ambulance that had been his shell for two hours, and found himself crossing behind the ambulance away from a news crew. What time was it anyway? Didn’t people need sleep anymore?

Sherlock took a deep breath. His arm wouldn’t be hurting as badly. His head would be clearer. Watson had injected some painkiller into the IV. Not much. He had avoided pain meds that would dull Sherlock’s senses appreciably, but he’d found something to take the hard edge off the pain.

“Don’t police want to talk to me?” John fell in beside Lestrade, both of them trailing Sherlock, who had a hard time being led. “You know, about firing the gun like I did?”

“Keep it down. I told them I’d deal with it. Keep that gun out of sight until this is over. There. Dealt with,” Lestrade glanced over his shoulder anxiously. “You’re a good hand with a sidearm, Dr. Watson. Looks like your time with the military drummed that much into you.”

“You could say that, I suppose,” John had been considered a marksman in the army. When it came to protecting people, he didn’t do things half-way. He spotted the car. Hard to miss. Sherlock, who had gotten past them, now paced impatiently beside it. Donovan stepped out of the driver’s seat and walked around to get in the passenger side. She didn’t look at Sherlock or speak to him, which meant he had no cause to be blunt with her. Donovan’s grey face was rigid, and her downcast gaze, dazed.

There was not a word in the car on the way back to the Yard. Whatever other considerations they were lost in, John needed only to look aside to realize that Sherlock was in a space all his own. The landscapes of his thoughts – what must they look like? Would they be chaos to John? Would he stand a chance of puzzling them out?

Lestrade parked the car in the garage, shut the engine, and looked at the blank slab concrete wall before him. He set his hands back on the wheel, his knuckles nicked and traced with old scars. No one moved. Sherlock probably didn’t know they’d stopped yet.

“Commander Snow,” Lestrade sounded irritated. His eyes glanced off the mirror to the back seat, and missing Sherlock’s attention entirely, fixed on John. “There’s a decent possibility that he won’t allow you into the building, and you can be certain he’s been told we’re on the way. That’s likely to mean he has people waiting for us.”

“He’s a big fan of Sherlock’s,” John rubbed his cheek and felt the beginnings of stubble. “God, do they ever get tired of coming out of the woodwork to give us grief? How is it we get to deal with every clot of them?”

“If he sends you out of here, we’re going to relocate to work on this.”

“Baker Street,” John nodded and rubbed his cheek again. He hated stubble. “Seems like the best place to me.”

“I was thinking another station, actually,” Lestrade half-turned in his seat and opened his mouth to explain when Sherlock exited the car and started pacing wildly in the garage.

Donovan’s glance was poisonous, “Leash your dog.”

“Sherlock. What’s on?” John cracked the car door and got out.

“Everything I need is in there,” Sherlock’s hands flicked at the station in that eloquently hyperactive way of his… which currently alarmed John.

“Mind the arm.” Thanks to Sherlock, John was relatively sure he never wanted children.

Holmes squared up. “Upstairs.”

Lestrade slammed the car door. “Sherlock, have you heard a thing I’ve-”

“And check hospitals. John did not miss.” Sherlock pointed a long hand at Lestrade.

“We can do that,” Lestrade patted air as if it could squash Sherlock’s temperament, which was sure to be some pure delirium. Then he glanced back at John. “But he can’t charge in there. You both need to listen to me, this is delicate-”

Sherlock stalked smartly to the elevator and jabbed the up arrow, several times. “Let’s go, John!” he turned and called impatiently. “Surely you can see how close we are?”

“Ah, no, I honestly don’t. And… I think you’ve done it – the elevator’s coming.”

“Then it needs to hurry,” Sherlock set his hands on his hips and stared at the steel box that defied him. The elevator made a ping. He checked his watch.

Lestrade waited for Donovan to arrive at his side and followed John. “How’s he close, exactly?”

“I don’t know. He barely had time to talk to her.” John shook his head. He motioned with his hands, “He’s right there, meanwhile.”

“All Freak did was shout names at her.” Hatred made Donovan’s voice rumble in her chest. “He wasted her time and got her killed.”

Sherlock pivoted in the elevator; his coat belled out around his long legs. “The names were cross referenced.”

“Are you serious!?” Donovan’s body jolted with the force of her shout. “If you hadn’t called her out, Mel wouldn’t be dead! But why would that ever cross your mind!?” She started for him, only to be detained by Lestrade.

“She’d be dead and you’d never have seen her again,” Sherlock said coldly. “Come on, Donovan, she was bright enough to understand this, pay your respects by following along.”

Sally Donovan shut her eyes and gathered herself for a matter of seconds, and then began shouting again. “You really think they’d hang around watching you? And maybe you should wake up, Freak – the Cold Case room isn’t locked. Anyone can get in.”

“The killer knew exactly which box to go to for a murder weapon.” Sherlock held the door with his right hand. His stare was of the sort seen among experts, when a fool blundered through. “The shooter knew precisely where I was well enough to easily elude police sent to safeguard me.”

Lestrade frowned. “I hand picked-”

“You didn’t,” Sherlock darted a deft fingers at Lestrade. “You began by hand selecting them. But these people would have been milling underfoot. You chose from their number.” Sherlock redirected with a weighty stare at John.

John blinked away growing exhaustion. He opened his arms and trudged toward his flat mate. “God Sherlock, wait a moment – who would be so bold?”

“Police.” He winced as the elevator door began to alarm from being held open for so long. He pulled back from them reflexively.

“Then how could they be organized enough to react so quickly?” John headed for him.

“Unicorn.” Sherlock exclaimed through the shutting doors. Then he was gone.

“You just let him loose in the Met!” Lestrade gasped. He covered his mouth with one hand.

Yes. Yes, I did. Hands on his hips, John stared down at his shoes. He rubbed his eyes, walked over to the elevator, and stabbed the button, Sherlock style. There were times when he strongly considered a shock collar for his flat mate, so useful at times like this. ‘Not good?’ Zzzatt! Oh he was tired, all right.

The police came to wait beside him and, after a moment of silence, they boarded the elevator and Donovan pressed John, “If you’d just think what being around him, not even professionally, but personally, says about you?”

Something inside of John rallied. “It says I need to keep up,” John straightened himself up. He might trudge into the elevator, and he might be spent, but he wasn’t being hunted by a killer, and – through some miracle – he hadn’t been shot tonight. One little transfusion was like filling Sherlock’s engine with high-grade petrol: off he shot. And John admired that.

The bell sounded. The doors opened on a low, growling voice, whose underpinning was an unhealthy wheeze. The events of the night had been too much for John’s nerves already. He struck into the hall in a hurry and narrowly missed treading on Sherlock’s instep. There stood the genius, hands in his pockets – looming in that frankly intimidating way Sherlock had. He stood above a gathering of Met brass. They stayed, for the most part, well back from Sherlock Holmes.

Fear.

John looked up at the intensely focused face beside him. He might have been a human radar. Sherlock could be subtle about it when he wanted to. That was almost always, in fact. This display was nothing shy of antagonistic.

On contact, Sherlock hadn’t liked Commander Snow.

Oh boy. John glanced at the man in the lead. It was his windy voice that had grumbled through the elevator doors like a distant storm. Coming out, John had caught the words ‘undesirable influence on this department’, and, now, above the collar of his white shirt, the man’s face and wide neck were red with anger. Then his small blue eyes found a new target. “Lestrade, I believe it was my direct order that he was not to set foot in here. You must value your job – you must – more than you do the guidance of this lapsed junky.”

Sherlock’s expression changed little, but John saw the momentary slip in focus which indicated Sherlock had felt something. All Sherlock said was, “Again: clean.”

“You don’t try my patience.” The man jabbed a finger at Sherlock. “You flew in here lit up like a beetle’s arse. You’re so cranked your eyes are glowing. I can’t believe no one else is seeing this. I’ll bloody-well have you booked and searched, and we’ll see if you’re clean.”

Sherlock’s head tipped a little to one side, analysing, but John also saw Sherlock swing his hands behind his back to grip one another. He did that to keep from inadvertently touching things he found distasteful, and because, it seemed to John, joining his hands was a gesture that soothed Sherlock. He often joined them while he was thinking, for example.

“Sir,” Lestrade began, “there have been developments in this case-”

Commander Snow half-turned, “There’s no case, man. You didn’t have enough of him making a fool of this department during the Cabbie Killings?”

Lestrade shook his head, “No one in the press pool knows the trick with the cell phones was him. The press doesn’t even know who he is. Not to mention he hasn’t done it since.”

John looked at the floor. Holmes would text the Queen if it got him what he needed, and John knew it. Best not let that show on his face.

Sherlock scoffed. “I gave you a serial killer. You’re cranky about my texting.”

“Shut up.” The Commander ordered. “Another word and you’ll find yourself in lock-up getting a urine test you and I both know you’ll fail.”

John, since he was totally ignored in this tense situation, walked a few steps out and swung around to look at Sherlock’s face. Did he look high? Large pupils. Bright eyes. How? Then John felt a blast of cold water in his veins. He’d fallen off more than once waiting to change out the bags for the transfusion. Had Sherlock been asleep the whole time? The back of that ambulance had been packed with powerful prescription drugs.

Sherlock’s glance bounced from Snow to John in a fraction of a second. Though John put up his hand to cover the lower part of his face, it was too late. Sherlock’s gaze raked the room so hard objects should have been jostled. He’d seen it. John turned choppily to Snow again, suddenly angry.

Snow pulled himself upright and smoothed his already smooth clothes, “You’ll lose your job, Lestrade. Is your pet addict worth that?”

The fireworks in the hall sucked up the air like an open fire. Maybe that was why Lestrade pulled a deep breath, and shut his eyes a moment, before he set out again. “Sir, putting Sherlock completely aside, there’s been another-”

“You should answer my question.” Snow pointed at him.

Lestrade bristled, “You should hear me out.”

It was like lighting propane. John took a few steps back from Snow. The man swung his arms out in a great X. “This association ends tonight, or you’re done! This death-buff never darkens the Met’s door again!” Snow swung a large paw of a hand to point at Sherlock, who promptly ducked down and scrutinized it.

It would have been funny. Normally.

“Cabbie killings.” Sherlock swept past, hands still firmly joined behind his back. The rest of Snow’s officials parted around Holmes like he carried deadly typhus. Sherlock looked down at John, who kept even with him by rote. “Horribly uninspired. A Study in Pink is thought-provoking, at least.”

“Uh, thanks,” John said. He scratched the back of his neck looking at the men spreading away from them, “Sure. Talk about this later?”

Snow was still railing down the hall.

“Get him out of here. I don’t want him traipsing around our crime scenes like he’s something other than a strung-out glory hound. For pity’s sake, you are relying on the advice of a man who freely called himself a high functioning sociopath, Lestrade.”

But officers froze, torn because Lestrade cut with a look anyone who made for Holmes.

“Anderson,” John muttered hotly. He could about wring that man’s scrawny neck right now. And he might have smacked Sherlock in the back of the head. “You shouldn’t tweak his nose like that.”

Sherlock rolled his shoulders before he was forced to stop by the last of Snow’s men.

“Thankfully,” Snow headed over with Lestrade gritting his teeth right behind him. “Now throw him out of here. Ridiculous,” he glanced over his shoulder and sneered at Lestrade. “He’s had so much crank we could grind him up and snort him.”

John’s eyelids flickered widely. Cocaine?

Sherlock’s chin rose, his eyes narrowed at Snow. Not a friendly look. But there was also that sudden moment of self-awareness that Sherlock never wore well. John didn’t need to be the world’s only Consulting Detective to know that was shame.

Sherlock watched Commander Snow rub the centre of his sternum, right above his prodigious ‘baby bump’ of Irish breakfast, and nightly seconds.

Heaviness in the chest.

Trace powdery substance on lower lip is antacid.

Stiff gait. Back pain.

Not chronic heartburn, but-

Sherlock gave his head a little shake.

“This is done, or it’s your job.” The man snapped.

Lestrade put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor. He looked up at Sherlock with the most measuring gaze that John could ever remember seeing on the man’s face.

“I’ll escort him out,” Donovan said. She meant it to keep Lestrade from making a disastrous decision, but it also forced the Detective Inspector’s hand. He knew Sherlock was right. He knew Sherlock’s life was in danger. Would he cut Sherlock loose?

There was almost silence in the offices around them. None of the night-shift stirred, except those who moved distracted about essential business, staring and clearly worried for the Detective Inspector.

“Sir,” Donovan said a quiet plea.

Damn her. John shut his eyes and prayed for a moment, because he didn’t have his Browning. The way the night was going, they’d never make it to- what was that soft clack filling his right ear? Sherlock made a soft groan and turned his back entirely.

“Good evening.” Mycroft said as he crossed the lobby, umbrella making a soft staccato on the floor as he went. “Hello, Dr. Watson.”

“Hello,” John said a little hoarsely, wondering if he might just have snapped again, and was imagining Mycroft now. And, oh my God, is that Sarah behind him? She looked afraid and relieved at the same time, and badly seemed to want to run to him.

“Well, this is convenient,” Mycroft smiled pleasantly. “I’ve just come from the Home Office. There are some serious concerns, Commander Snow.”

Mycroft Holmes was not a huggable type of man. He was actually quite slick and clever, like some unholy union between a snake and a crow. John might have hugged him right then. In fact, the tension draining out almost made him giddy.

Mycroft went on, “But fancy meeting you here, Sherlock.”

Sherlock made an inarticulate sound of disgust and started walking back in the direction of the offices. He passed Snow without a second thought.

“Holmes!” Lestrade said.

“Yes?” Mycroft replied smoothly.

Many in the room did a double-take.

Lestrade glanced at Mycroft but vaguely motioned at Sherlock’s back.

“Yes,” Mycroft replied knowingly. He tugged a shirt cuff. “Quite sorry about… him.”

“Uh, no need,” Lestrade managed around his surprise.

“Then excuse me a moment, gentlemen,” Mycroft signaled Anthea. She didn’t look up from her texting but fluttered her fingers in acknowledgement, “I must speak with Sherlock, on a matter.”

Snow swung his gaze around to Mycroft, and, though it seemed impossible, his expression became even less agreeable.

No one tried to impede Mycroft as he set off after Sherlock’s flagging coat.

“That his brother?” Lestrade asked no one in particular.

It made John smile. No two kin could look less alike, he felt sure of it. It would be easier to believe John Watson was Mycroft Holmes brother. Then Mycroft paused and turned. He called out tolerantly, “John. What are you doing?”

“I’m…” he looked anxiously at Sarah and then opened his arms a little. “Standing.”

“Interesting. I would think it wiser if you were to come with me. As I said, I was hoping to speak to him.” Mycroft waited elegantly in the silent circle of police.

John pinched the bridge of his nose, “Honestly? You’ve known him since children.”

“And he listens to you. Do come along to translate.” He raised a hand like a cup he tipped toward his brother’s receding back.

Snow’s chin rose imperiously. “If you know what’s good for him, you’ll take him with you when you go, Holmes.”

“Ah, Mr. Snow, we shall see,” Mycroft said lightly. But there was an edge in his tone that stopped people milling. It took him a long, ominous moment to turn his attention from the Commander to his brother again. “Now, John, if you please.” Mycroft spun the umbrella stylishly under one arm and indicated where Sherlock sat staring ice daggers. Even the attitude of Sherlock’s sitting telegraphed discomfort and resentment.

Wow. John threw an apologetic glance to Sarah but was obliged to follow behind Mycroft.

They’d reached an empty span of desks. “We’ll need to use an office.” John indicated the large echoic space with some concern. He didn’t think Sherlock would shout, but any conversation would bounce from the walls in this large an area and stood to be overheard.

“Yes, I know.” Mycroft’s fingers tightened on the umbrella, and his already quiet voice went whispery with distress. “When was he shot?”

John was flummoxed, “You can look at him and tell?”

Mycroft smiled a little. “Yes, I can tell he is injured. It’s all over his posture. He’s hurt his arm. But it was the charming young woman over there who told me he’d been shot. And I must say it’s so novel to see him with companions. I never thought friendship could happen for him. Oh, I debated it, I played with the odds, but I honestly never thought it plausible. And now a lady friend? Sherlock?”

This rankled John somehow. For one thing, “Oh, well, you see Sarah’s my girlfriend,” John began.

“Yes-yes, of course,” Mycroft said with a small twinkle of delight. “But she doesn’t hate him, and I’ve never seen a woman do that. Still… it’s early.” He winced.

John found those words thoroughly depressing. He glanced up and honestly hoped Sherlock hadn’t, somehow, apprehended them.

In fact, Sherlock’s face was turned away. The great detective hugged himself lightly on the ribs, transparently uncomfortable. The Yard was Sherlock’s terrain, John thought, it was his asylum. Here, the younger Holmes could forget about many things… including the insurmountable obstacles between himself and Mycroft. Whatever they might be. John couldn’t guess. Mycroft had ruined it by setting foot inside these doors.

Sherlock’s whole body straightened to proper stiffness in his chair. He sat like a Catholic school boy at Mass, and avoided looking at Mycroft as long as he could.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft’s fingers squeezed the umbrella he held like he might want to strangle it. It looked like a hurricane of disapprovals crossed his mind, pushed by a thunderhead of outrage, but he only said his brother’s name.

Sherlock’s voice was sour as day old tea. “Why are you here?”

It was miraculous he didn’t get swatted by the umbrella.

Instead, Mycroft used the hook of it to pull a chair across, and then folded down to a perfectly balanced position before his brother. He looked Sherlock over as if his younger brother was little more than flight boards at the airport and he wasn’t certain he liked what he was seeing. The tension between them built like pressure on an unplayed string. John’s own nervous energy, standing aside, made him want to pluck that invisible string to see what note it would strike. Finally, Mycroft’s fingers loosed on the wood handle. “What did you take?”

“Nothing.”

The umbrella’s steel tip made a loud bang on the floor tiles. “Don’t lie to me.”

Even John jolted. It brought him out of his stupor. “I gave him something for pain.”

Sherlock’s head whipped around to take John in. He looked blindsided.

“I mean, I’m sorry.” He spread his hands. “You need pain management, Sherlock.”

Mycroft released a pent-up breath and artfully dissembled to give himself a moment to regroup. He returned with, “Don’t blame John. How could you allow yourself to be shot to begin with, Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s green gaze locked on Mycroft, and, from there, the stare went hard. “I didn’t see it coming as the shooter was on a second floor, and a standard Glock has a muzzle speed of 350 -60 meters per second.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. It was thoroughly careless of you to get into such a position to begin with.” Mycroft made a perfectly minute shake of his head. “And, once shot, it didn’t cross your mind to enlist my help?”

John winced. It was a bad tack to take with Sherlock. Very bad.

Sherlock threw his body back, “Oh, enlist your help? What do you want?”

“To take you home,” Mycroft said stiffly. “Clearly, you lack the sense God gave the rest of us, and by that I mean the presence of mind to take yourself to hospital. Aside from which, I don’t want to have to explain this to mother without you safe beside me to-”

Sherlock sat forward, “Are you insane?” He climbed to his feet, closed his hands in the small of his back, and strode out past John.

“Hey, don’t run off,” John told him. But Sherlock only went as far as the glass wall and shoved the door to an office – Lestrade’s. Mycroft rose to his feet, smoothed his suit, and walked inside. John hurried behind, afraid they’d end up throttling one another. They held their tongues in the glass room, until the door closed.

Mycroft pointed his umbrella at Holmes like rapier. “You have no human feeling.”

“I don’t care.” Sherlock replied. “If that is your reason for coming, it’s wasted breath.”

Mycroft smacked the umbrella’s tip to the floor with a thwack. “Doctor!”

“Don’t appeal to him,” Sherlock turned in a thrash of coat and stepped up to Mycroft. “I’m sure you’d be very happy to put him in the middle of all this. To put me in a situation from which I couldn’t escape without-”

“Without what?” Mycroft looked up inquisitively. “Without hurting one of us?”

“Please. I hardly care.” Sherlock turned to pace. He didn’t meet anyone’s gaze, but stared flatly at Lestrade and Donovan slowly heading their way. His fingers, entwined behind his back, were taut.

John blew out his puffed cheeks, and eased himself to lean on Lestrade’s desk. He rubbed his hands over his hair. “Sherlock you… you are exasperating. He can’t prevent himself from worrying about you. He’s your brother.”

“Not something I can change.” Sherlock replied.

“People worry about the ones they love,” John couldn’t believe he was spelling this out. Sherlock could explain in revolting detail how murder entangled itself with human feeling, but John also knew his understanding of emotion was frighteningly academic. There was some interruption between Holmes and the experience of emotion. It was almost like a deficiency, or disability. So John laid it out like an illuminated signpost on some dark forest path. “Worry, a worry like this one, for example, can make a perfectly sane person incensed with you, Sherlock. Mycroft was probably frantic.”

“Not something I asked for, and not important.”

“You were shot. You could have died,” Mycroft clacked the umbrella. “Is that important?”

“Peripherally,” Sherlock sounded dreadfully irked by the question. “I have actual work to do, Mycroft. Unless you have something pertinent, I believe we’re done here.”

John, his hands on his hips, put his head down. It was like scaling a wall, to find, millimeters in as you reached the top, a taller wall. When he looked at Mycroft, the man’s face was still and closed. He was like a floodlight in the off position. Slowly, he burned back into life.

Mycroft nodded to himself, “Yes. I had a letter come across my desk today.”

“Then why don’t you go do something about that.” Sherlock invited and then turned in place. He stared at Mycroft steadily. “Tell me.”

Mycroft sighed, “I see we’re interested now.”

“Mycroft, tell me.” His hand flicked. “And then leave.”

“First tell me who shot you,” Mycroft leaned against Lestrade’s desk and crossed his arms. “Also, for the sake of the family, will you swear to me you’ll take rest after this case and-”

“I’m really quite busy, Mycroft.” Sherlock said. He turned for the door. John got up and hurried over to block it. In fact, he stepped right into Sherlock’s path. It forced the larger man to a sudden halt. Sherlock stared down with unfamiliar expressionlessness. John backed up a step; he might have been rumpled newsprint blown in Sherlock’s way.

Well enough of that.

“Look, stop this.” John said, and then to Mycroft. “He’s going to convalesce at home after this, yes. You don’t need to worry about it, because I’ll see to it. And there are lives involved in all this, Mycroft. A woman was shot down tonight, right in front of us – right in front of Sherlock,” it struck John that the younger Holmes was remarkably together for having experienced such a thing, perhaps owing to his atrophied emotions. “If you know anything about why, be humane and tell us so.”

Sherlock half-turned to scrutinize his brother.

In that moment, Mycroft betrayed no reaction whatsoever. Then he moved the umbrella to dangle over his elbow by the wooden handle. “You’re… very possibly a good influence on him, John. You give me hope. When it comes to Sherlock… that’s extraordinary.”

What did one say to the sudden flood of optimism on Mycroft’s face, which was moving, but more alarming, because John couldn’t fix this. If three people hadn’t been murdered, he wouldn’t have interfered at all. It had caused Mycroft’s face to brim with conviction. “I don’t…. Mycroft, maybe you shouldn’t make people into heroes. I’m not sure they exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one.”

Sherlock, from whom John had first heard the words, could be seen to smile broadly in reflection. He was still looking out through the glass rather than to deal with his brother, but he felt his point had been made. No heroes. Just villains and the blissfully ignorant. He was the kind of villain who hated other villains. John, Sherlock felt, was the same.

The smile wasn’t lost on Mycroft either, whose gaze fixed on Sherlock in the mirror-bright glass, thoroughly disappointed. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and took out an envelope, but he handed it over to John. “He can be very eloquent, John, but be careful. For instance, did you know that hero comes from the Greek heros?”

John took the envelope, but Mycroft did not release it. “No.” John admitted.

“Yes. It came to define men of superhuman strength, and otherworldly courage, and my brother is quite right, demigods do not exist. However, the original meaning is much more personal in scope. Heros – any man who defends or protects. Do you defend or protect anyone, John?”

According to that definition, he had a long, lusty relationship with heroics. John had involuntarily looked at Sherlock. He realized this, and looked at the floor instead. Holmes was a maze of dichotomies: fragile and incredibly resilient; unwavering and unstable; composed and yet beyond control. His vulnerabilities, his weaknesses, threatened one of the most exotic of creations – the novelty of that mind. Which meant it risked Sherlock himself. For John, that was an unacceptable risk to take. Sherlock was almost a force of nature. But he was also very weak.

“Interestingly enough,” Mycroft released the envelope at last. “The etymology for hero traces back to the Latin root of ‘observe’ – servare. Means to watch and keep safe. To protect.” He indicated Sherlock’s turned back with a tilt of the umbrella. “Be careful with what he tells you, John. Listen, but listen critically.”

“Are you done?” Sherlock droned. He ignored Watson’s offer of the envelope.

Mycroft passed him on the way to the door. “Commander Snow has an intense disapproval for you, Sherlock. It springs from your unfortunate background, I believe – for instance, the habit you’d developed as a younger man.” He bopped the handle of the umbrella gently off Sherlock’s chest. It was almost a friendly gesture.

“I don’t need it anymore.” Sherlock turned his face away. His voice was so quiet it was barely audible. “What’s the envelope?”

“You tell me.”

“Paper is local. Address is your office. Contents were probably printed from your Deskjet to avoid arousing suspicion. Handwriting is female.”

Mycroft turned John’s way, “Anthea is mathematically gifted. Not so keen with names and faces, I’m sorry to say, but, does very well with numbers.”

John nodded mutely and looked down at her handwriting.

“Sherlock, listen to me.” Mycroft reached across and laid a gentle hand on Sherlock. Though the injury was on the interior of the upper arm, beside the ribs, Sherlock’s bruising was extensive. At that glancing touch, his face drained of colour, and he froze in the attitude of someone abiding pain. Mycroft’s hand dropped. His gaze pounced on John. “Dr. Watson, as his physician-”

“I’m not.”

“Oh, you are.” Mycroft looked annoyed, “I’m going to ask you to give him no more than another hour. Sherlock, I promise you, if you persist after that mark, I will put a call through to the house and I will tell.”

“Of course you will,” Sherlock’s green eyes were squeezed shut, but he might have rolled them if he were inclined to eye-rolls. “Go away, Mycroft. You’re ruining everything.” The door opened to admit Lestrade at last. He stood staring at the Holmes brothers, neither of which even bothered to glance his way.

“How juvenile you are,” Mycroft stiffened and raised his chin. “You could be doing great things, Sherlock, things that would defy description. You have that in you. It’s the perversity of your nature that demands you waste yourself this way. I wish you could resist.”

Sherlock rubbed his eyes with his fingertips as if washing his eyeballs right through his eyelids. “Go. Away.” Or maybe it was some kind of mantra?

Mycroft shook his head and stepped past Lestrade without a word. He continued down the hall until he reached Commander Snow, who, along with his men and Anthea, he rounded up and led toward an elevator. He had had questions for the Commander, John remembered.

Lestrade stepped in and shut the door. Shortly, Donovan parked a chair outside it, such that they wouldn’t be able to open it without first having her move.

“What was that?” Lestrade asked anxiously. “Is there some problem with you working for us?”

“Not unless you mean Snow’s aversion to recovering addicts.” Sherlock said.

“I thought you were going to leave with him?” Lestrade jabbed a thumb after Mycroft. “That, him, your brother.” He bungled. It seemed hard for him to imagine Sherlock having an actual family.

“God no.” Sherlock loomed and watched Mycroft walk away. He glowered right up until the elevator doors shut away Mycroft and the Commander’s fuming, red face. The moment that happened, Sherlock plunged at John and snatched the letter. John nearly fell over. Holmes snapped a pewter letter opener – undoubtedly a gift – off Lestrade’s desk, his eyes scanning both sides of the envelope zealously before he opened it. “She was in a hurry, but urgent. See her pen pressure? The little dots at the end of each stoke. He printed this, and she didn’t properly fold the letter inside. It is imperfectly sealed. That girl must move fast only when Mycroft does.”

“What is it?” Lestrade edged forward almost straight into Sherlock’s extended hand, put between them to detain him.

“Numbers. Account numbers and... Home Office had their suspicions aroused by a discrepancy in pay regarding this branch. A mistake….” He flipped pages, the corner of his mouth pulling back in to a half smile. “Namely, Melody Doyle’s report on her tax return. She reported a mistake.”

“Who would be foolish enough to report taxes on ill-gotten money?” John shook his head.

“Not foolish…. Guilty? Disgusted? Ten-eighty-ten, John. The closer to the top ten you get, the more difficult it becomes to commit, or endure, a crime. The bottom ten, they are the mirror image of the top. Everyone else is in the middle 80 percent.” Sherlock joined his hands as if he might rub them together, an action John had only ever seen of him while deciding over food – God could he put food away. It would be nice to have a bite to eat.

John shook himself.

Sherlock grinned a little, “That or she’s a Muppet.”

“Uh, say again?” John’s head tipped forward. Sherlock could use Muppet in a sentence. Oh! Better still, he knew what Muppets were. Surreal.

Lestrade was shaking his head, “Muppet – most useless person police ever trained. And Doyle isn’t like that, Sherlock-”

“I know.”

“-she has good instincts. Mel is very good at picking out liars, and practically a staple on domestics and calls with kids.”

“Leaving guilt, dissatisfaction, anger – Ah! It’s like a fairy-tale. This is her breadcrumb trail.” He flapped papers, “She wants to be caught. Not being caught was driving her to cheekier actions. Thus Jerry Ballard is having a Very Bad Night.” Holmes shoved the papers at John who looked through a slew of numbers without connecting any jot of them to the next. He gazed at it sightlessly, like it was a window pane. “Lestrade?”

Sherlock paced the room, fingertips laid gently against his temples.

The Detective Inspector seemed to know better. He took the paperwork and tucked it back into the envelope. This went folded and directly into his inner jacket pocket. “Unless I’m hard of hearing, we have an hour and then you’re out of the Factory for the night. Potentially. If Snow comes back before then-”

Sherlock paused, “He won’t.”

“No?” John blinked.

Sherlock’s expression pulled into a caustic smile. “Mycroft is allergic to seeing me arrested. Oh how it hurts him. Must pay respect for the creaky, old bloodline.”

Lestrade gave a sudden burst of disbelief and said, “I suppose it helped you, then?”

Sherlock had turned away again, and snatched out his phone. His digits started fluttering over the touchscreen, and then hit a snag. “My arm is stinging, John. Do something.”

Progress. “Will you take pills?”

“Something else.”

Or not.

“I can give you a shot. But I have to know what you’ve taken.” John said carefully. It wasn’t Mycroft asking this time. The reaction was somehow vastly different.

“Nothing,” Sherlock caught the shoulder of his coat and pulled him around. “John…” but he wasn’t able to express anything further.

“Sorry, yes,” John rubbed the back of his neck and Sherlock released him. “I think we’ll go see Sarah and get you a shot of painkiller somewhere without glass walls.” They’d left the bag of medicines that Sarah had packed, in a police locker. There had been a lot of haste to get to Melody Doyle’s location.

“Anything else for me?” Lestrade asked.

Sherlock finished texting and Lestrade’s phone made a pinging sound. He took it out and looked at Sherlock. “We’re in the same room.”

“What’s your point?” Sherlock asked and then humoured the man. “Vincent Lloyd and Tony Butler are directly involved, and I want to see Melody Doyle’s desk.”

“Vincent and Tony?” Lestrade’s jaw fell open a moment. When he reeled it back in, his brows drew down and he cocked his head in thought.

“Desk,” Sherlock said aloud. He made for the door.

Lestrade jerked back to the present, “I’ll show you,” he nodded.

“I know where it is.” Sherlock replied. “Honestly, Lestrade, I’ve been here before.” He went to the door and tapped it. Donovan’s glance at him was acid, but she moved the chair aside and let him pass. In fact, she followed him. This was part of what she’d been appointed to do, of course, but it made John anxious to see them go off alone.

“He’s memorized the floor by now,” John rubbed his cheek. “I need to get the syringes and find a private place to inject him.”

“You might want to check the bandaging.” Lestrade said. “Not that I’m a doctor or anything – obviously – but Sherlock’s pale on his best day, I’ve seen fish bellies with more colour than he has now.”

He had a good point. Sherlock was underfed and anemic. His blood pressure was still too low. He still needed protecting.

“Hello?” Sarah said from the doorway. Lestrade glanced between her and John and excused himself. She immediately entered, her gaze scanning the office.

“You’ve never been to the Yard?” He got from that.

“No,” she shrugged cutely – or so he thought – and spread her hands. “Lots of glass.”

John sat on the edge of Lestrade’s desk. “Sherlock likes clarity so, I guess this is apt.”

She sped over to him, “Are you okay? Some of the officers were talking about a shooting. Someone tried to shoot him again? Were you in any danger?”

“No-no. I’m fine,” he thought back to his lapse of any sense during the firefight and decided it would be best not to mention anything about that. Frankly, it disturbed him. He’d been so focused on the muzzle flashes that he’d felt no fear. “We need to inject him. His arm is one large bruise.”

“You’re fine?” She asked.

John set down the pewter letter opener that, for some reason, he still carried, reached out, and set his hands on her slender arms. Just like that, her eyes filled with moisture. It was clear she’d been terrified. “Mycroft showed up at the flat and convinced me to let him in. I didn’t know that I completely believed who he was, but he was frantic, and Mrs. Hudson swore he was a relative. He knew Sherlock had been shot.”

John’s head dropped forward, “Meaning the apartment is bugged.”

“What?”

John rubbed her arms. “Let’s just be glad he’s on our side. Mostly.”

Lestrade tapped the glass and held up the bag of syringes. Sarah recognized it at once and turned a smile in John’s direction. “Come on. Let’s put a sack over his head and drag him off where we can take care of him.”

Sherlock was seated at Melody’s desk when they arrived. Donovan’s temper was doing a slow boil by the look of her inflexible back and bared teeth. John extended a hand to detain Sarah. His voice was low. “Let him finish.”

Sherlock opened desk drawers and started looking around.

Organized. Not tidy.

Glitter pens.

Two nail files.

Glitter bangles.

My Little Pony figurine.

Adolescent.

He pulled out a notepad and laid it on the desk.

Written letters almost identical in size regardless of case.

Emotional.

He got up and circled the desk, looking closely at its contents. Finally, he poked through the smaller drawer and came out with a small pink book, covered in tea roses. Each page’s edge was bright with gold. Sherlock moved the small elastic aside and looked into the book.

Planner.

Phone numbers.

Personal friends.

He pulled out a photo and turned it over in his hands. “Who is this?”

“Marty White,” Donovan said coldly. “Their families are close. Cop families. I suppose you wouldn’t know. Your brother seems to despise you, and you-”

“Unimportant.” Sherlock said. He took out the small magnifier he carried and squat over the desk, staring at the photo.

“The Gaels Pub is not a watering hole frequented by police.” He muttered to himself as he scanned the photograph.

Body turned toward her.

Pupils wide.

Hand on her ribs, not her shoulder or upper arm.

Thumb on wedding band.

Affair.

Sherlock straightened and, for a moment, closed his eyes and looked slack. John had seen this look before – he was passing out. As unobtrusively as he could, John circled the desk and put a hand on the small of Sherlock’s back. “Sherlock,” he said in a firm, but quiet voice.

Holmes came back around and glanced down angrily at his left hand.

Sarah nodded at both the men at the desk. She stood back with Lestrade. “How about you both walk with me?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes but slid out of John’s grip and complied. Lestrade led them all to a Men’s Room into which he admitted Sarah. Donovan stayed just inside the door.

“Will this do?” Lestrade pulled over an uncomfortable looking couch and motioned at it. “Sit down now, Sherlock. It won’t help them if you’re bouncing around.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. “It’s burning. Why is it burning?”

“Because you’re using it, and not resting,” John told him. He picked up Sherlock’s arm and squeezed his wrist, counting seconds on his watch. “Uncross your legs. Take off the coat. Sarah could you prep a syringe of prilocaine?”

“Underway. How’s the pulse?”

“Fast. Do we have a blood-pressure cuff?”

“No,” she clucked her tongue with regret and brought the needles over.

“Oh look, Freak,” Donovan smiled. “Those are a few of your favourite things.”

He ignored her and unbuttoned his shirt. “Why does it feel hot now? Answer me.”

Sarah pulled his shirt back and frowned, “He’s got the beginnings of an infection. I suppose we should have predicted this.”

Holmes glanced up at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry – deduced it. However you like, Sherlock. You told us you were running around for a couple of hours without a chance to clean it.”

John shook his head. “We need antibiotics.”

“I threw some in.” She rattled a bottle. “Penicillin. Don’t leave home without it. If you’re shot.”

John couldn’t repress his smile.

Sherlock heaved a sigh and picked up a needle himself. Happy time was over. John snatched the thing out of his hand, which earned him a glare from Sherlock. “We have an hour. Inject me. I have things to do.”

“I need to clean it,” John crouched down and Sarah hurried back with clean paper towels. “We won’t be taking any short cuts for an infected gunshot wound, Sherlock.”

Cleaning it hurt. It was clear it hurt, because Sherlock couldn’t talk. And this was a man who could talk in his sleep. Sally Donovan looked down at the wound, up at Sherlock’s grim face, and walked out the door of the washroom.

By the time they bound it up and had Sherlock take the first of the antibiotics, he was exhausted and sore. He slumped to the right on the couch once they were done, his injured arm wrapped against his chest. Lestrade wiped sweat from his own face, having stood through John and Sarah cleaning the gunshot wound. “Oh, he’s done. Poor beggar.”

John glanced up to take the man in, unaccustomed to sympathy of any kind, for this devil. “We’ll let him rest up a minute.” John washed blood off his hands, careful to soak under the nails. Sarah sat beside Holmes, and placed a cool compress on his neck. She wiped his face clear of sweat with careful motions of wet paper towel. “I think they’re going to have to cut him to clean it thoroughly.”

She turned John’s way. “If the infection takes hold, he’ll be feverish soon.”

“So if his temperature spikes, we’re getting him to hospital.” John finished. “I don’t care if I have to carry him kicking.”

Lestrade guessed. “Just chuck him in the arm and he’s yours.” He checked his watch. “Think he can nick these guys in an hour?”

No one speculated. Certainly not Sarah. She reached down and, after a second’s hesitation, touched Sherlock’s heavy curls of hair back from his forehead. She swept his brow with the cloth. “He’s not awake… poor thing.”

“Just, please, leave him. He needs to gather himself.” John threw both hands before him and unrolled his sleeves over his forearms again. It was a ridiculous thing to be maddened by and a sure sign he’d been awake too long. John forced himself not to be silly about it. Particularly not with Sarah, a woman he truly appreciated, and who’d once smacked an assassin with some cast-off wood, not to forget. Aside from which, “If we tell him he can’t do this, or suggest he give up, he’ll leave us and work this out on his own.”

Donovan pushed the door and stepped in again. She cocked her head at Sherlock on the couch. John expected cracks about someone having pulled the plug on the Freak, but she remained silent and watched him. It was as if she couldn’t relate to him now that he was unconscious. He did look – John peered down at Sherlock – young.

“So what was his assessment of Mel’s – of Melody’s desk?” Lestrade cleared his throat. He leaned on the tile wall and crossed his arms. There were clear flashes of regret and pain at the mention of Melody’s name.

John didn’t know, so he said, “He went until he found her address book, and then a picture with some fellow named Martin White.”

“Jesus,” Lestrade said between his teeth. “Marty’s family – they’re a cop family just like Mel’s.”

“There was a photo of them meeting up in a place called The Gael’s Pub. Does that mean anything to you?” John leaned back on the Counter.

“It’s not one that I know,” he shook his head. “Police kind of get established in the pubs they go to, I’m sure you know.” Lestrade checked his watch and groaned. “God, I’m gonna be dead tomorrow.”

Sarah blinked, “Well surely they won’t suggest you should come in after a night like tonight!”

“All this?” Lestrade waved at John and Sherlock, “Not sanctioned by the Commander. I’m doing this on my own time, for Jerry’s sake. He was a good man. And Mel – God knows I would never have pegged her for something like this.”

Sherlock’s tone was deep and gravelly with the near memory of pain, “Good reason for that.”

“Welcome back,” Sarah told him. She gave his curls one last smoothing and stood up to carry all the cold paper towels to the nearest disposal bin. Sherlock watched her curiously, made no particular headway there, and levered himself upright again.

His bowed lips compressed in a line of frustration, “GOD that stings.”

“It’s a bullet hole.” John pointed out. “I didn’t have enough medicine to properly numb it. And there’s none left now. But… I know what you’re going through, if it helps?”

“How could that help?” Sherlock honestly seemed at a loss. Shaking this off, Sherlock took the refilled water bottle Sarah handed to him and drained it just to not have to deal with it anymore. Once he was done he simply swung his arm out over the side of the couch and released the plastic bottle to fall with a clatter. It was a clear indictment – he didn’t want any more fussing.

“Here’s what we know. Melody Doyle was involved in a conspiracy that was doubling her income. She disliked it intensely enough to file it honestly on her tax report leaving a paper trail. She wasn’t aware that something going on in this branch had already caught the attention of our mathematical genius in Home Office-”

Lestrade blinked, “Mycroft Holmes?”

“No. The girl. His girl.” Sherlock flicked his hand before him as if sweeping the remark out of his mind, “So she confessed her part in the plot to Jerry Ballard. He dies the same night. She was being watched, making for a strong possibility we’re being watched. It’s not her nature to work herself into such a mess – she needed a gateway drug. Marty White, the man she was having an affair with. Melody would have been incapable of entertaining this scenario unless brought in by someone in whom she placed faith and trust. Initially, at least that person happened to be her lover.” He nipped his bottom lip.

“Unicorn,” John said to himself with a nod. Melody based everything on a personal connection. For her to be involved would require a web of people she trusted and admired.

“You haven’t grasped the full sense of it yet.” Sherlock hugged himself, his shoulders collapsing inward. The pain was a constant now.

“Marty’s married,” Donovan’s head tilted to one side. “And he’s not a heartless pig, Freak.”

“Your average continues to drop,” Sherlock straightened and turned crisply. “You’re a terrible judge of character, Donovan. How do you get on with police-work?”

She went to respond, saw Lestrade shake his head, and fell silent instead.

“Marty’s the killer, then?” John suggested.

Sherlock blinked at him, “John... you should get sleep.”

“Thanks for noticing.” John sighed.

“He’s not in the country,” Lestrade noted and then blinked. “Allegedly. Of course… now I’m risking my job on some of these allegations. Do you mind telling me who’s at the bottom of all this?”

“I don’t know him yet.” Sherlock experimented with getting up. It was a bit of hard work, but he seemed pleased with the results. “The more I glimpse him, the more I realize he needn’t have murdered these people himself. He’s controlling. So far, we have Melody Doyle, Vincent Lloyd, Tony Butler, and Martin White. But there are more.”

“You’re sure?” Lestrade frowned heavily.

Sherlock managed not to roll his eyes. “We still haven’t gotten to the killer. Tony Butler’s dominant arm is in a sling. Vincent is alibied by his family. I can read your hen-scratches, Lestrade. Melody, we know, is dead. I assume you’ve confirmed the alibi of Vincent Lloyd?”

Lestrade’s head dipped down a little, “His girlfriend is swearing to it. She’s his only alibi.”

Sherlock looked up from his texting, “Worthless. And bring him in. He’s guilty.”

“All right. And we’ll look into Martin’s holiday with his wife and kids. It’s Paris.”

“Bad timing for us. Marty’s cronies just gunned down his lover. Provided he wasn’t terrified, he might have given up the others.” He clucked his tongue and tossed his phone in his pocket, “Lestrade, do you have any reports of unexplained gunshot wounds coming in to hospital?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Then try the explained ones. John hit someone tonight. Of that I’m certain.” Sherlock didn’t seem to notice it when Sarah stiffened.

John did. He turned her way, his lips tightening in dismay.

“Bring in Tony Butler and his broken arm then. And Vincent Lloyd. I haven’t the energy to chase after them tonight…. But we’re closing on them now, Lestrade. As we cut their numbers, they have to draw in closer in order to stop us,” Sherlock smiled suddenly. “An hour. I’ll have this cracked in less.” He pushed through the door, tired as he was, and strode out into the hall.

Sarah caught him on the sleeve as John began to move. “What did he mean, John?”

There was nothing for John to do but watch Lestrade and Donovan leave him behind. This wasn’t a conversation he’d wanted to have with Sarah. In a Men’s Room. How odd that backdrop should strike him now that Sarah’s eyes were startling. Finally, he stilled and gathered himself for whatever was to come, and met her eyes. And Sarah threw herself on him in a tremendous hug. It so startled John that he backed up a few steps and had to catch her around the ribs.

“I didn’t think you were so close to the shooting.” She said. Her voice was indistinct, coming from the shoulder of his jumper as it was. “Was this another situation like with The Blind Banker?” she used the title he’d given that case in his blog. “I had such a bad feeling you were in danger.”

John smiled broadly, reached around and rubbed her back in gentle circles. “Sarah. I’m fine.”

She eased back from him, leaned forward, and kissed his cheek gently. Apart from the thrill of having her so close – she clung about his shoulders with her flat little belly pressed to him – there was the sudden flare of regret.

“My work with Sherlock can be risky, Sarah. And I’m sorry. I had to return fire. I hope you can-”

“Oh,” she stepped back, “oh no, John, you mistook me. I don’t care about that. You also had to shoot a perfectly hale Chinese man with a crossbow bolt because he was trying to kill me. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the sanctity of life, but when it comes to being gunned down, if it’s you or them, let it be them. I’m just worried for you, the both of you.”

“The both of us.” He repeated and rubbed his short blond hair a moment. She was a confusing girl, this one. Sometimes John had the queasy paranoia that she was dating them as a pair.

“Of course,” she pushed the door. “We should find Sherlock. He’ll be needing us.”

“I’m sure he will,” John sighed. He picked up the baggy with its remaining medical supplies, and walked out to the hall in her wake. Far down the hallway, Sherlock passed through a throng of Late Turn police who looked at him with heavily mixed emotions that ran from curiosity to hatred. It put John on edge. If they hadn’t been police, he would have told them to clear off.

Sarah scurried to walk close, flanking Sherlock’s first-rate coat. John watched her there in a kind of haze. She did get along with him. Somehow. Superficially at least. It argued that some women could. Maybe it would be wise to listen, but listen critically to Mycroft as well.

Sherlock chose a briefing room to wait in. Ostensibly. In reality, he paced along outside the clear walls of the box. The humming of the air exchanger above threatened to undo John. Already, Sarah dozed at the end of the table – the seat directly to his left. The room was a bit far from the hubbub of the department down the hall, but that might have been a blessing in disguise. In spite his current presentation, Sherlock was exhausted, his energy-level halved, and he needed the peace and quiet. He should be in here, resting now. Instead, his constant circling drove a wedge of worry through John’s attempts to catch a 20 minute refresher. It got to the point where John got up from the slab table inside, bypassed Sarah, and went out to intercept Sherlock in the hall.

One minute he was pacing, then next he was standing square in front of John.

“It’s taking too long.” Sherlock pulled out his phone and texted.

“For what?” John asked.

“For Lestrade to round up the men I requested.” Sherlock checked his watch and held out his phone to John.

“It’s been less than ten minutes.”

“My point, exactly. Thank you, John.” Sherlock said. The phone snapped back to Sherlock, who typed a few more words before distinctly hitting Send.

“You should learn to have some patience with police work, Sherlock.”

“They should learn my methods.”

“It’s not as simple as that, Sherlock. You can’t just read this stuff and know how to do it,” John’s phone chimed and he took it out of his pocket to check the text. It was Sherlock, of course. He shook his head and muttered, “Really?” But he also read the message this time.

‘We are being followed. Come with me to the parking garage.

We need to draw this one out. On the way take the truncheon.

I will show you where it is.

And, John, when I show you my phone pay attention.’

John cast a long-suffering look up at the genius. He locked his screen and shoved the cell into his pocket again. “This person probably has a gun.”

“But I have a plan.”

They struck off together toward the stairwell. Sherlock knit through desks, his fingers brushing the surface of one in passing. John glanced down and swept the truncheon up under his coat. They continued in the direction of the stairs. He could distinctly hear Sherlock’s heavy breathing. Holmes was in pain, but enduring. They headed down the stairwell straight to the bottom, and came out in the garage. Sherlock snatched the truncheon and gave the fluorescent lights above him a tap that shattered them.

A well of darkness cloaked them. Sherlock handed the stick back again. And, without a shared word, both men flattened to the sides of the door.

The officer behind them pushed through slowly. John was on the handle-side and saw the side-arm come through, held low, as the officer tried to figure out if the lights had gone here or been switched off. But he didn’t remember the garage, the switches, or the distances between lights the way that Sherlock did.

It was only when the door was sufficiently wide that the sparkle of broken glass became visible in far off lights, by then, it was too late.

John swung.

The gun skittered away like a rat.

Sherlock hooked an arm around the door and caught a fistful of uniform.

He gave a wrench that yanked the police officer straight through the door over his extended ankle.

This officer crashed to the ground just short of the glass, scrabbled up, and bolted. John reached the gun first. He’d assumed this to be the target, but it didn’t prove to be. The officer blew past, boots slapping concrete.

Sherlock was right behind.

If it came down to a footrace, John was hopelessly outmatched by Holmes. True, if it came down to many things. But not when it came to being a decent shot. He squared up and shouted. “Stop or I’ll shoot you.”

Apparently, this had no impact. John tore off parallel to Sherlock and the running officer.

“Shoot!” Sherlock shouted between gasps of pain. “John. Shoot the damn gun!”

John skirted through cars and reached open lots. He made time charging along at a flat run until he drew even with Sherlock.

“John!” Sherlock snapped as they charged along, only the odd pillar separating them. “She’s getting away!”

“She?” John hadn’t noticed it was a woman.

“John, honestly! Who cares?”

“The gun should be enough to identify her.” John watched Sherlock zigzag around a parked car and cross to join him. Holmes was amazingly fast.

“And if it’s not hers?” Sherlock’s face was so white that it was deathly in the fluorescent glow from above. The glow of headlights bounced along the ceiling in front of them, the woman faltered, and that was all it took. Sherlock was far too fast for mistakes. He ploughed into her. Both his long hands took purchase around her, and he flung her in a complete circle. That was the force of his momentum, but it wasn’t helping his injured arm any.

John winced to witness it.

As soon as she came to a stop – in front of John, as was no accident, John felt sure – the woman stuck up both her hands, “It wasn’t me!”

“Who are you?” John kept the gun level. However, Holmes was behind the woman. He couldn’t easily fire it at her.

“Kelly,” the woman said breathlessly. “Get the Freak off me.” She half-turned, her teeth flashing at him, “You’re supposed to be all screwed up, Freak, so how can you be so bloody fast!?”

“She knows you’re shot.” John said with a nod. Sherlock had worked her cuffs from her belt and reached up to cuff one of her arms.

“There’s no need, you bloody nancy!” she bellowed at him. “I can’t believe I’m being cuffed by the like of you. I can’t believe you caught me to begin with.” She made a sudden lunge at his left arm, which John had been watching for, and – so help him – he had to slap her full in the side of the head to keep her from doing it injury.

“Bastard.” She gasped and shook her head a few times. The woman had to set her feet to stay upright. Sherlock cuffed her other hand easily.

“We need to get up out of here.” John said edgily. It was a good place to get gunned down.

Sherlock looked up curiously. “You slapped her.”

“Very good,” John flushed red. “You’re doing well. And, cut me slack, Sherlock – I had to.”

“One wonders,” Sherlock caught the back of her collar and yanked it tight to her throat, causing a soft gagging sound before he adjusted his grip. “You wouldn’t fire a warning shot to slow her, but you slapped her hard enough to rattle the ball-bearings filling her head.”

John clicked the gun’s safety and pocketed it. “She was going to exacerbate your injury.” He closed his hand on the woman’s elbow before he impelled her forward. “You’re in my care.”

Judging by the smile, Sherlock seemed to find this quaint.

Kelly gave them some fight on the stairs, forcing Sherlock to press her to the wall and lean on her until she was gasping. She rained down swears on him for the rest of the walk up to the squad room. There was another fight at the door, where she flatly refused to be taken into her own office in cuffs. Sherlock hissed with pain and backed up. This was just as well. John gave the woman a yank from the door, which Holmes swept open so that John could stuff her through.

“You nancy!” she caterwauled and aimed a kick at Sherlock. “It’s a pity they didn’t fill you full of holes, Freak!” John wrestled her away.

Sherlock cocked his head at her. “I think we can classify Kelly as hostile.”

John chuckled and got a heel in the instep for his trouble. He honestly didn’t know Sarah was there until her hand reached in, caught hold of the blonde bun in Kelly’s hair and gave a vicious yank. The woman cried out with pain, but it didn’t faze Sarah any. She snapped, “Behave!”

“Get her off me!” Kelly howled.

It was impossible to miss this commotion. Lestrade reached into the knot of them and caught hold of Kelly’s elbow. He yanked her clear. “Stop resisting, Carter.”

“You shouldn’t have let that monster get involved.” The woman struggled. Lestrade put her in a police hold that instantly made her whimper and still.

John looked up at Lestrade from rubbing his instep. “You surprised by this one?”

Lestrade grumbled, “She’s always been a hothead. No offense, but I’m surprised by bloody all of them, John.”

But John was more concerned with what was lacking. He glanced around to find Sherlock. The now frail genius had withdrawn into the glass meeting room he’d selected. The run downstairs had been too much for him. Sherlock crouched in one of the leather chairs, knees pulled upward with his feet on the seat and his arms around his chest. He cradled his left arm. Oddly, Donovan stood just inside the room with him. Her back was to the door.

Two people he could never leave alone together.

And it wouldn’t be much longer for Sherlock. His head tipped back against the pillowing headrest, his eyelids low, and his jaw tight with pain. The knowledge that there were no more syringes full of painkiller had to be crossing his mind. Holmes’ eyes did not stray from the wall-clock. John briefly wondered if he had lost his mind, letting Holmes pursue this. Infections could kill people. This was an untreated gunshot wound – totally inhumane. Had the war gotten him used to this?

“I never killed anyone.” Kelly bellowed just a few feet behind John. He spun around out of startlement, but she was buried in police. “I’m sorry he lived though. Freak!”

Sarah drew closer to him with a shudder. It was disturbing to see someone unstable thronged by police. John took a step in her direction and watched Kelly aim a kick their way.

“Calm down, Kelly, and that’s an order,” Lestrade demanded.

Too close. That big bruiser of a boot had come too close to Sarah’s belly. John ducked between police and caught Sarah’s hand. He tugged her into the glass room and stopped. Because Donovan and Holmes were… talking. Kind of.

“-know how many more?” Donovan asked him. Her voice sounded like a steel bar chipping away at solid concrete.

Sherlock opened his eyes and droned, “I don’t have a tally book, Donovan. They’ll tell me when we’ve got them all.”

“Mel wasn’t like them.” Donovan crossed her arms and looked out through a glass wall.

And Sherlock agreed with her. “She’s dead, which proves that theory.”

“Kelly Carter. I never liked her.”

“Look at that, we have something in common.” His gaze rolled askance to John. “When are they bringing her in?”

“I don’t know if Lestrade will. She hates you so much that I doubt we’ll get sense out of her.” John sat down in a chair on the right-hand side of the head of the table. Sherlock sat at the head, and didn’t resist when Sarah picked up his pale hand and took his pulse against her watch.

“John, get my phone and text Lestrade. I absolutely must speak to Kelly Carter.”

This drew a windy sigh from John, who was then obliged to get up, reach into the coat, and take out Sherlock’s phone. Sherlock didn’t even open his eyes for this.

“Text him this exactly – Offer Kelly Carter a lighter sentence in exchange for my shooter.”

John texted this and shook his head. He laid the phone on the shiny, glassine surface of the table and closed his hands together. “She’ll never go for it.”

“Of course she will. Didn’t you see her, John? Loud, brash, chin up with her collar popped inside her jacket. She’s cocky with a daylight habit of alcohol abuse that makes her even more aggressive by the time she arrives here with her bullet-proofed buzz under steam. It’s a simple thing to be grandiose when you’re operating on liquid courage. In fact, that makes my offer a win-win for her. She gets away with a wrist-slap and gets to grandstand. After all, nothing is more fulfilling than putting one over on the infamous Sherlock Holmes because you know something he doesn’t, and have something he wants.” he roused himself a little. “Everyone loves to gloat, John.”

“Alcoholism?” John asked. “What makes you think alcoholism?”

Sherlock sighed, “I don’t. Do pay attention, John. Alcoholism isn’t the same thing.”

“You’d know.” Donovan said, but even her dig sounded hollow. “What Freak means is that people who abuse alcohol have some ability to set limits. They aren’t quite dependent on it yet, like craving it, and they aren’t totally out of control, like an alcoholic. But I didn’t know that about Kelly.”

“You…” John stopped moving altogether. “You believe him.”

“Didn’t say that,” she withdrew immediately. “I just don’t see how he could know-”

“Shaking hands from too much drinking. Bloodshot eyes from insomnia. Slight weaving in steps from the buzz, and a decided mincing in her gait from the headache as the buzz fades away. A small aerosol of breath-spray in the upper right pocket of her uniform to mask the smell of alcohol,” Sherlock said lazily. “When’s the last time you saw a woman with an aerosol can of breath spray?”

“She’s a drunk,” Donovan said flatly. “Fine. But what does she have to do with Mel?”

Sherlock slunk, almost out of his chair. He put one hand on the table, one on the armrest, and eased his body up and out so that he could look Sally Donovan closely in the face. She didn’t move, not a muscle, and didn’t flinch or withdraw, even with Sherlock’s green eyes within a foot of her face. He sank back into the imitation leather with a soft exhalation. “Oh, you were good friends, you two, and now… you have no idea how you missed it. You’re furious. But not at me.”

Donovan moved suddenly. Her hand came down on the table before Sherlock with a crack that jolted them all. “What does Mel have to do with this?!”

Sherlock, his brows drawn up curiously, turned his face toward hers. They were so close they might have counted eyelashes. “Bring me Kelly Carter, and I’ll let you stand here and find out.”

She straightened slowly, and went to the door. She spoke to the officer standing there. Initially, he stepped aside to let her out, but Donovan had her orders. She sent him to Lestrade. She didn’t leave. John appreciated that sense of duty. She was Sherlock’s security right then.

Within five minutes, Lestrade and a decidedly hand-cuff-free Kelly Carter walked down the hall which ran parallel the glass wall. Carter was in sweats now, rather than in uniform. Sherlock scanned her head to toe as she came through the door and leered at him.

“Well if it ain’t Billie-no-mates his-self.”

“Himself.” Sherlock said reflexively. It didn’t seem to bother him he’d been called a friendless outcast. No, it was the grammar that got to him.

“I been offered immunity, nancy, how do you like that?” She sat down in the chair on his right and leaned her elbows on it.

“You’ll get yourself in trouble and land in jail soon enough,” Sherlock told her. Behind them, Lestrade shut the door and took a few steps into the room. He stood behind Kelly.

“Like you did?” She laughed at him. “Oh my God, you may be a nutter, but you’re damn pretty. Jail, for you, would have been pure hell.”

Lestrade took a step forward only to receive a warning glance from Sherlock to stay back.

“I don’t believe in hell.” Sherlock said indifferently.

“Oh, maybe it was pure heaven then, nance. You smart boys do need a bit of force.” She sneered at him. “And you are a Freak, after all.”

“You know how this game goes,” Sherlock told her idly. “You don’t get immunity gratis – means ‘for free’. It’s about time you tell me what you did for them.”

“So much rather talk about you, though,” she knit her fingers and gave him a look straight out of a police handbook. “Like how long you think you gonna live tonight, mate.”

“All of it,” Sherlock told her.

She put her fist under her chin and said, “These are some serious people, nance. Sure you want to make that kind of a projection?”

Sherlock cocked his head and glanced at the set of her arms before he said. “You don’t know them. By that I mean you don’t know who they all are. Don’t you think that jeopardizes your immunity somewhat?” He leaned in a little. “Do you believe in hell, Officer Carter?”

It was the first chink in her venomous façade. She sat back a little and blinked. “I know they’re going to give you a few extra orifices, Sherlock.” She said his name like it was something dirty, but the delivery of the threat had a slightly panicked ring to it.

“And how, exactly, is that going to save you?” Sherlock asked her.

Now she took her elbows off the table and sank back in her chair. There was a long pause during which clicking issued from the round white clock face at the front of the room. It looked fascinating from outside, with all its moving parts visible through the glass…. Finally, Kelly said, “You’re wrong.”

“I’m right,” Sherlock corrected her.

“You don’t know cack about my role in all of-”

“You’re passed out on your couch in the day,” Sherlock said imperiously, “not here, like Martin, or Tony, or Melody. You are on the late turn. You don’t know who they are. What do you do for them?”

She sat back far enough for her shoulders and the back of her head to meet fake leather, and then she shut her mouth. It took whole minutes, as if they were locked in a staring match. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I did for them. The only person I met – the only one I talked to – was Melody. She’d even come over to my house and pick up.” Kelly looked down.

Shame.

Sherlock set his hands together under his chin. “She was their people person. Melody had the charisma and the receptivity needed to keep the rest of you operating together. She was the glue.”

Kelly shut her eyes. “I honestly don’t think she believed she was doing something wrong.”

“What did she ask you to do?” Sherlock asked.

“She’d show up sometimes with some simple things.” Kelly scratched her arm at the inner elbow as she spoke. “Nothing big. Nothing really harmful. Mel was a good kid.”

Old injection site.

Sherlock looked up from the scratching. “You know she’s dead?”

She dropped her head and nodded.

“Who told you?”

“I just heard it when I got to the office.”

“That’s a lie.”

Kelly ignored him. “She’d ask me to unlock a door that shouldn’t be unlocked. You know. Get her keys she shouldn’t have. Let her in places. Get her back out. Get her computer passwords. Nothing ever came of any of it.”

“Something did,” Sherlock said. “She’s dead, after all. And you… you know how to nick things out of pockets, and pick locks-”

Her bloodshot eyes pivoted up at Holmes. “So do you.”

“Ever so useful, people like us,” Sherlock smiled a little and said. “You can take her away now, Lestrade. Expect withdrawal signs from her in about a half a day.”

Lestrade caught Kelly by the elbow and helped her out of her seat.

“You’ll be dead by then.” She snapped in retort as she was dragged out the door.

“And you’ll wish you were.” Sherlock rolled his fingers in air in a parting wave. He sat back as soon as she withdrew from the room. He sat staring, his hands and fingers laid together against his lips.

“So…” Donovan said quietly.

Sherlock glanced over his shoulder a little. “She was often called to domestics, often included on cases with children. She was good with people. Difficult people. Martin brought her over and she became their PR person. She identified Kelly as someone with the necessary skillsets – a juvenile record for theft, run-ins with the law, minor drug violations, but a good disposition if handled correctly. Her relationship with Jerry Ballard would have helped her do this. Martin was her lover – means she trusted him. But that wouldn’t have been enough. Someone like Melody is too idiosyncratic-”

Dots her ‘i’ with circles.

“-the person giving the orders… she would have to trust him even more deeply. She would have to admire him. Otherwise, she couldn’t follow him. Which, in the end, she found to be the case….”

“Fascinating,” John breathed and glanced across at Sarah’s equally amazed expression – a smile, actually. “How’d you come to that inference?”

“You heard her,” Sherlock got to his feet and checked his watch. “Melody Doyle didn’t think she was doing anything wrong. For that to be so, her faith in the man at the top had to be nigh unshakable.”

“Where are we going?” John hurried after him, but not as quickly as Donovan did. Sarah caught up the dwindled bag of medicines and trotted to keep up.

“Melody’s desk.” Sherlock spread his hands, his cheeks suddenly flush with colour. Well, as flush as they could be a couple pints too low. Or was that fever? “We have 20 minutes to the hour, John. But I’m only minutes away.”

“She won’t have written it down,” John shook his head. “She sounds too careful.”

“Careful, yes, but you’re wrong about the rest. These things get written all over her life. She’s peculiar. She seems unsophisticated, but she’s also signalling like firefly.” Sherlock told him. He looked down at Donovan and said, “She was much cleverer than you.”

“She was.” Donovan’s lips compressed in sorrow so sudden that it caused John to reach out and wrap a hand over her shoulder, briefly. Far from being irritated, Donovan clearly appreciated Sherlock’s expositions on her friend.

It was part of the little she had left of Melody. John thought it must be a horrible feeling.

“It must have irritated her when no one called her on that tax return. Taxation was asleep at the switch.” Sherlock glanced back at Donovan. This was because she didn’t slow as they arrived at the desk. He studied her face for a moment as he moved around to stand behind the chair.

Donovan bent over the keyboard, and typed in Mel’s password. Sherlock, behind her, made an inarticulate sound in his chest, a sort of non-verbal ‘of course’, and the desktop popped up – a stunningly romantic Mucha wallpaper of a dancing girl that made one corner of Sherlock’s lips pull back. “Subterfuge.” He checked her most recent documents. “Nothing.” Sherlock thought for a moment and did a search for .bmp, .gif, and .jpg. He let that run as he searched the desk.

His trembling hand swept lightly over the desk’s coloured pads, glitter pens, and fluorescent sticky notepads. “Visual. She’s visual.” He dropped to his knees and searched under the desk. Nothing.

“Search is done,” John said from above him. Sherlock had started tearing things out of the drawers and arranging them in piles on the floor. He also flipped through pages in the planner, his shoulder pressed against Watson’s legs for support, or for the sake of safety. His left arm was injured, and it was more likely to get an inadvertent bump in his present position. Keeping it against John was the perfect point of reference. John, above him, fancied he could feel the heat of a building infection right through the coat and switched the view to Large Icons. He started scrolling the results. “She’s been to Paris too; lots of cute cat pictures, she likes cats; pictures of nights out drinking.”

Donovan made a little gasp. “That’s Martin with his arm around her there.” Her fingernail made a tap against the flat screen.

“Donovan, who was she close to?” Sherlock asked.

“Mel? Lots of people.”

Now Holmes pushed an entire stack aside. “No. Who did she admire?”

“She admired a lot of people, Freak, for different things. She wasn’t a social pariah, like you. Try being more specific.” Donovan’s lip curled, but she kept from shoving him away from her with her foot.

John scrolled down. “Pictures of her family – her mother, God. Pictures of a little sister, it looks like. And Sally, there are pictures of her with you at Notting Hill.”

“Oh, are we working?” She redirected her attention to the screen.

John dared a glance at her exhausted face and nodded. “You should keep those.”

“John,” Sherlock barked from under the desk somewhere. “Focus.” Really, the impulse to tread on his hand right then was pretty powerful. Sally expected no better and simply nodded her agreement.

“Is that her mother?” Sarah asked Donovan. “She looks lovely.”

Sherlock growled, “She could look like a shoe-horn – it doesn’t matter.” This time John lifted up the toe of his runner to jab Sherlock in the thigh. The genius’ whole body gave a small jump.

Message sent.

“Oh yeah,” Donovan told them. “Actually, that’s mum, Mel, and Shelley. Shelley is Mel’s little sister. A house full of girls, their house, you know? So it was always pink wallpaper and tea roses everywhere. It’s such fun being over there, because each of them is just weirder than the next. They’re always up to something unusual. See Shell here, putting stars on Mel’s nose with Zinc. They’re idiots.” Her voice was warm as she indicated her friend on the screen.

Sherlock popped up over the side of the desk and looked at the photo. He scooted Watson’s hand off the mouse and scrolled through the next few. “So… she has no father.”

“The Doyle’s are a cop family, actually.” Donovan yanked the mouse away from Sherlock. “Her father died when she was 19, in police action. I was never really clear how it happened. It was all hush-hush. Everyone said she’d drop out of academy, but she didn’t. The whole thing almost tore their family apart though.”

Death of father. Cover-up.

She loves the Met.

She resents the Met.

Sherlock sat back on his heels, his eyes directed at the stacks of papers and possessions before him on the floor. “The murderer… he’s her father figure.”

It was like a light bulb went off for Donovan. And then she laughed. “Plonker. Try again.”

Holmes stared up from the floor, across Donovan’s pant suit, over her tightly crossed arms, and into her disdainful face. He said, “You’re thinking of someone. Say the name.”

“It’s impossible, Freak.” She glanced away from him.

Sherlock rushed up off the floor and chased her gaze. He shot off through the desks with his coat flaring behind him, until he reached a quiet corner – perfect for observation. He flipped the decorative name plate on its neat and tidy face around. “Alec Fisher.”

Donovan followed him much more sedately. “Not sure how you did that, but Alec’s an old sweat. You’d have to know him to know how barmy this idea is. The guy is law and order in the hair roots. He’s been at it forever. He’s close to retiring.”

“Seems like a good time for padding the nest.” Sherlock glanced over the desk.

Left-handed.

Orderly.

Organized.

Closemouthed.

“Doesn’t seem like a good time to ruin your entire career and suddenly turn into a multiple murderer.” She threw her hands up. “Here, let me speak your language. It’s not plausible, Freak.”

Sherlock circled the desk and wiggled the mouse as he searched. The desktop came up. It made him double take. Default OS Desktop. Even if the computer was password protected, it wasn’t locked.

Superior. Sets traps.

Sherlock opened a written file on the face of the desk, and read the writing there. Nothing pertaining to this case, rather, it was paperwork describing an incident where he’d had to discharge his weapon. It was dated a month back. Sherlock’s fingertips traced down the page quickly.

Sharpened downward ‘t’ strokes – domineering.

Approaches to open letters looped. Finals from open letters, looped.

Deception. This desk is staged.

Sherlock picked up the rubbish bin beside the desk and found it empty. He went over a few rows until he found garbage and glanced in. Inside, he found blue sticky notes that he opened and read. The writing was a match.

Anxious. Suspicious.

“He has enough of a track record of wrongdoings that he’s now habitually paranoid.” Sherlock dropped the sticky notes back in the trash.

“Alec? Are you mad?” Donovan laughed at him again, as though Sherlock were a fool. Neither Sarah nor John joined in. “Alec is a friendly old guy. He talks about his past glory a lot. Bit of a Station Cat now, but he’s getting up in age.”

“And he doesn’t like to use his own bin for his own garbage,” Sherlock said.

“He’s a neat-freak, look at his desk!” Donovan replied.

“He’s obsessed with leaving no trace of himself,” Sherlock told her and yanked out a drawer, randomly. “Look at this space. Notepads – no writing on them – stacked according to size. A blue ballpoint pen – local. A wood ruler – local. Where are the sachets of sugar and salt and pepper? There’s not even a headache pill. The man is invulnerable. He doesn’t even have a coffee cup. Look around you, Donovan. What do you see on just about every desk here.”

John looked quickly about, and the array of highly individualized mugs was persuasive. He glanced at Melody’s desk. She had two. One pale blue with ‘Jem’ and a pink-haired girl printed on it: it held pens and pencils of all imaginable colours and styles inside; the other had Miss Piggy hugging Kermit the Frog.

“He uses disposable cups.” Donovan said staunchly.

“And throws them out elsewhere,” Sherlock pointed out. “This is not being neat and tidy; this is him removing himself from a scene. It’s all a façade. The underlying psychosis, that’s real. But this isn’t. He’s been running scams from the inside of the Met for a while, surely, because work like this would take practice; probably just small things at first, like a hobby, until he figured out that he could do them without the rest of you being any the wiser. He used Melody’s potential properly, at first. Carter, she didn’t even know who Melody reported to. With practice he became careful to distance himself from the criminal activity. In the end, though, he did something to shake her trust, and Melody Doyle began her campaign to take his retirement fund down.”

Sherlock began taking the desk to pieces, throwing the contents of the drawers onto the floor. He created a stack of papers which had actually been used and a stack that he called ‘filler’. The difference was so stark that even Donovan blinked in disbelief. Sherlock buzzed around the desk.

So little to go on. It was maddening.

“Cipher.” Sherlock stood back and pointed at the piles definitively. “John, we must find this man. He’s on the cold case list and he had power over Melody Doyle. This desk screams he’s guilty as sin, and well aware of it. He’s our mastermind.” Sherlock checked his watch and smiled broadly. This was because he still had two minutes to the hour. “Ah, nice – very nice!”

At a noise, Donovan turned in the hallway. She had her hand on her gun so quickly it would have been awe inspiring… if John hadn’t made it to Melody’s even more quickly. Down the hall, a pale face flickered for a moment then exited in a hurry via the stairs.

“Who was that?” John asked.

“Hugh Bennett,” Donovan cocked her head. “Acting… too strangely for coincidence. Someone had their eye on Mel, for sure, and now it looks to be your turn, Freak.” She took out her cell phone and dialled. Her destination turned out to be Lestrade. “Sir, you’d better come up here right now. Freak has some news for you. And I just saw Bennett… why?”

She listened for a while and turned wide-eyes to John. “Carter just gave up Hugh Bennett to save herself. He’s part of the Late Turn, like her. Always treated her bad though. He won’t get out of the building, seeing as the D.I. has people looking for him.”

“We should meet Lestrade.” John suggested. He glanced to where Sarah – God love her – had somehow fallen asleep in Alec Fisher’s chair, long ago shoved aside. She wasn’t much for late hours. John went to stir her, and she blinked at him.

“Did I miss much?”

John simply smiled. “We need to go tell Lestrade who the killer is.”

“We do?” She sat up and rubbed the back of her neck. “Nuts. I missed it.”

Sherlock brushed by in a wash of distinctly medical scent, underwritten by the rain scent that typified his coat. “I suggest you be happy you don’t figure in the dénouement, bound and gagged.” This drew a strange look from Donovan, who followed Sherlock doggedly.

Sherlock paced back and forth waiting for the elevator. His hands moved like lightning over the keyboard of his phone – faster and faster. John watched the unhealthy glow that had taken hold of his eyes. Their next stop would be hospital.

Lestrade met them at the elevator door. As soon as the door belled and opened, he hung up his phone and took his hand off his gun.

“Jumpy?” John asked him. Like he hadn’t been doing the same thing.

Lestrade watched Sherlock stride past the door to the left then back again. He relaxed realizing that Holmes was pacing, and stepped out of the elevator. “How many of these people are there?” he huffed and cursed under his breath. Sherlock didn’t answer, and none of the others had any idea, so Lestrade sped along. “Vincent and Tony are locked up downstairs. There’s one God awful chase going on in the lower floors after Bennett, people legging it left and right.”

“I knew we should have gone after him,” John clucked his tongue and noted that Sherlock had given not the slightest attention to Lestrade. “Sherlock, he’s here. Stop texting. And for God’s sake, stop pacing. You’re sick.”

“Freak.” Donovan snapped at him.

Sherlock angled for the elevator and Lestrade without looking away from his phone. One long and articulate hand swung toward Lestrade. “Your lynchpin is Alec Fisher.”

Lestrade actually laughed. “What?”

Sherlock pointed the phone at Lestrade and explained. “Fifty five year old man admitted to Lambeth Hospital with a gunshot wound approximately 20 minutes ago. Bullet entered through the wrist and exited through the shoulder. John shot down his gun arm and nailed him. Badge number checks out. Alec Fisher.”

“My God – I don’t believe he’d do this to Melody,” Donovan said. She caught hold of Sherlock’s arm and gave it a tug in her direction. Far from this having the desired effect – bringing the screen her way – the cell immediately hit the floor and Sherlock reeled back with an audible gasp.

“Freak?”

John went for him, catching up after Sarah had. She had hold of his elbow in one hand, and had wrapped her hand around the back of his bowed neck with the other. “I think it’s safe to say he’s feverish now. Feel here.”

John reached in and palmed his neck. “Erratic pulse and he’s boiling.”

“But it’s a dry heat.”

Everyone looked up. John found Melody’s gun reflexively.

The lights on the floor went out before he’d even finished the sentence.

“Who’s there!” Lestrade shouted in the darkness. “Show yourself.”

John edged in front of Sarah and Sherlock, “Stay with him. Keep yourselves hidden.”

“What?” Sarah said shakily. “And where will you be?”

John didn’t answer that. “Lestrade, what are the chances for assistance here?”

“Most of the police will be chasing Hugh in the downstairs.” Lestrade grumbled. “I can’t believe no one saw a problem with all the tempered glass in here. Makes it hard to hide.”

“For him too,” John pointed out. The sound behind him was Sarah making an executive decision: if the stranger on this floor with them knew they were by the elevator, they had to move.

“Where’s she going with him?” Donovan whispered. She set off after the pair of them almost at once, and John remembered she’d been assigned as Sherlock’s protector tonight.

John hurried behind Lestrade in pursuit. Ahead of them, Sarah made good time with Sherlock, who was doing his level best not to gasp in pain. The pair of police, and John, met with them and Sarah whispered, “Do we know where we’re going? Because I’m making for the stairs right now.”

“Trap,” Sherlock said unsteadily. “I would expect the stairs. Centre of the room.”

Sarah zagged with him, hurrying between desks and taking them to the centre of the large upstairs. She didn’t question, such was her faith in him. She dropped down behind a desk and began to peel the coat from Holmes’ shuddering body. He didn’t even open his eyes. The bandages were red, the blood soaking through his shirt.

“Jesus,” Donovan took off her coat and pulled off her scarf. She handed it over to Sarah who set to binding the injury. But, remarkably, it wasn’t the blood draining from Sherlock that had John’s attention. It was the blood on the floor. The trail of blood on the floor. He turned Sherlock’s way and caught him up by the chin. He was positively burning up. “Listen to me, Sherlock. You can’t rest yet. This isn’t over yet and you have to be ready to move. Do you hear? Can you understand me?”

Sherlock blinked his feverish, liquid eyes at John and said, “Of course I understand you, John. Have you lost your senses?”

“Someone else is in here-”

“That’s not unexpected.”

Of course. It was important to be specific with Sherlock when his sense was fading. “One of the conspirators is in here, and your blood has left a nice shiny trail straight to us.”

Sherlock blinked heavily. “The advantage of this central location is the amount of unpatterned searching the average person would have to do in the dark to locate us, plus the mobility afforded us. Fifty percent nullified if he notices the blood.” Sherlock squinted a little at John. “Blurred vision. Headache. Trembling.”

“Blood loss. You’ve developed an infection and are now feverish. Very good,” John told him. “Mycroft should be primed to destroy me when he returns.”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock scoffed his brother’s name. “What’s important here is the fact I can’t operate optimally, John. Being shot was trouble enough.” He shut his eyes and seemed to fade from consciousness for a moment, John having to catch his lolling head and steer it to rights before his abnormally glittering greens opened again.

Sarah finished binding his arm and whispered, “Gunshot wounds tend to lead to complications if not properly treated. Do you think you can run if you have to?”

Sherlock took a moment to reply. His head lolled back to the desk drawers. “I like running.”

“Oh my God,” Donovan said quietly. “I honestly… I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“I know,” Lestrade told her. He was texting away on his cell. “Hush. I’m taking a page from Sherlock’s book and I don’t have a lot of time. I hear him coming.”

Sherlock’s eyes opened. He looked to the right as if in response to his name being spoken. “He’s not far now… and getting closer.”

“I see your blood, you bastard.”

“Who is that?” Donovan mouthed to Lestrade, but she was also helping Sarah sneak under the desk. The chair had been out of the way when they’d first gotten here. John took her hand for a moment, and then pressed close to Sherlock, wrapping an arm around his ribs. If they needed to move him, John would have to assist with Holmes. Sensing this, Sherlock shifted a little, and pulled his legs in under him.

“Alec’s a good man. He’s probably not going to survive what you did to him, Holmes! Arteries and veins just ripped apart…. Took me forever to even get the bleeding under wraps, and then I had to drop him off at the hospital. I had no choice. He’s a better man than you. And you’ve killed him.” His voice had become slightly less distinct.

Sherlock sat forward to Donovan’s ear. “He’s facing away.”

Donovan risked a glance over the desk and came back down uninjured. “Robert Reid,” she whispered and shook her head. It was barely more than a breath.

Lestrade texted this as well. He texted faster than John did, at least, and showed the phone to Sherlock and John. It said, ‘Hair-trigger temper. He won’t hesitate to kill you.’

Every day is my birthday when I’m in the Yard, John thought. He looked at Holmes, bleeding and pale, and knew this had to end soon, or they risked his death.

Sherlock realized this too. He made a gun shape with his right hand and flicked his wrist upward. John read that to mean, ‘Shoot him’. Holmes was all about expediency now that his mind was clouding with fever and blood loss. He’d solved the thing. He wanted it done.

“Come out, Holmes. It’s you I want. No one else is going to get hurt if you come out. Not that pretty girl of yours, I saw you with. No one.”

Sarah, he meant. John glanced at her frightened face. She was entirely focused on keeping a steady pressure on Sherlock’s arm.

“No.” Lestrade shook his head at Sherlock. There was no way he was going to allow it. “Donovan, I think we’re going to have to-”

Sherlock stood up. John was half dragged with him. He released Holmes and snapped the gun out straight with a tremendous shout of, “Drop your weapon, or I will shoot you!” His voice boomed through the room.

Lestrade shot up around the side of the desk on one side, while Donovan skittered out, low, on the other. Sherlock pointed at the man who held a gun on him. “You’re his right hand. You’re his trigger man.”

His voice was thick with emotion. “I didn’t shoot you, if that’s what you’re asking. That’s Vincent. I wouldn’t have missed.”

Sherlock lowered his arm, “Did you kill Jerry, then, while Alec Fisher watched for foot traffic? Possible. But you wouldn’t have taken the pains Alec did with the cleaning staff.”

“I didn’t kill anybody.” Reid snickered down the muzzle of his gun. “And with you shooting Alec, that’s not something you can refute.”

“Bad luck for your rap sheet if you kill me now.” Sherlock told him. “So stop this.”

“He’s right. Put your gun down, Bobby.” Lestrade commanded.

“Can’t do that, sir.” The cop shouted back. “That monster there, he…. It’s Alec, sir, and he’s probably about to die. The Freak has to pay for that. I’m honestly relieved to see you bleed like the rest of us. I guess I’m going to see more soon enough.”

“Ah, he’s very good, Alec Fisher. Do you see, John?” Sherlock nodded knowingly. “He’s good at rounding up orphans and fabricating a sense of family for them-”

“It’s not a fabrication!”

But Sherlock carried on, “-and Melody was fatherless too. She felt the same for a time. What made her turn on him?”

“Oh, she wanted to get out. She felt guilty all of a sudden, like we’d lost our way. But Alec wanted another year so he didn’t let her. He told me Mel was simply irreplaceable. Maybe so. She had our problem children wrapped round her fingers, and Alec believed Mel was the only way to control some of them. Like Carter – there’s a ticket. I know you have Carter in a cage downstairs, that gormless idiot. But she’s a prodigy when it comes to petty crime, did you know? She can get in locked doors, nick anything, she’s excellent at getting passwords, and she lies like a bird flies, Holmes. Effortless. Alec said without Mel we couldn’t hold Lloyd, Bennett, and Carter. And Martin, really. Those are useful, but difficult people, he said, you know. But then he’d give anybody a chance, he would. Now get the hell out here a little in the light for me. I’m dying to see your face, so I can shoot you in it.”

“Alec and this man shot Melody dead,” John muttered to Sherlock. “He still sees it as a family?”

“He’s been indoctrinated for years,” Sherlock shrugged. “I’m putting my faith in you now, John. When I step forward, shoot him.”

“What?” John snapped. But Sherlock had already taken his first step, and – in a fraction of a second – John saw their gunman go still and steady to get a bead on Sherlock’s head.

Almost without thinking, John squeezed the trigger. A deafening roar bounced off the glassy room. It appeared to John that the shot struck just shy of the man’s shoulder; he’d flung himself aside. As a result Reid’s own shot went wide, it clipped a curl from Sherlock’s hair right above his ear, and smacked into the tempered glass wall behind him with a tremendous crack. Sherlock gasped, he blinked rapidly, shocked at what had happened.

Sarah screamed somewhere behind John’s back.

Reid scurried and started to come to his feet with the gun rearing up.

John coldly took aim just below the nest of his throat.

The lights came on. Lestrade leaped past John in the direction of the gunman. He crossed John’s line. And Reid’s. Both of whom quickly pulled their guns up. Donovan ran straight down the row of desks with her gun low. She’d made a good prediction, because Robert Reid broke and ran before Lestrade reached him.

John backed up and reached a hand out to press around the injury in Sherlock’s arm. When he glanced, he saw that Sherlock’s hollow gaze follow the progression through the glass offices. In fact, when the gunman paused to crack off a shot, Sherlock caught John and they took a few swift steps to the right. This put so much tempered glass between them that the notion of a slug reaching him was hopeless. It made a webby impact with one of the offices on this floor. Doubtless, Sherlock even knew whose it was.

John kept the gun on Bobby Reid until he was taken down under the combined force of Lestrade, Donovan, and a flood of hurtling Late Turn officers gushing into the room. There had to be 12 or 14 of them. Lestrade had been sending them texts.

“Time, time. Ah, what odds. I knew before the hour was out.” Sherlock noticed blood soaking into his watch strap. “John, I’m.…”

John planted a hand on Sherlock’s chest and pushed him to sit on the desk behind. “Stay.” Then he headed back the way they’d come from.

“John!” Sarah shouted from under a desk ahead. Maybe she’d been doing that for a while. John had been so focused on the gunman and Holmes it hadn’t registered. Under fire, his internal mental triage had taken over.

“You can – you can come out.” He told her shakily. John clicked the safety on Melody’s gun. He laid it on the nearest desk and turned toward Sarah in time for her to collide with him, her arms around him so tightly they made him skip a breath. But she was off just as quickly her hand pulling him. Sherlock had started to buckle.

Sarah wasn’t a particularly powerfully built girl, but she did her best to keep him upright. John hurried to help her ease him to the floor. “Was he hit again?” She asked breathlessly.

“No,” Sherlock said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she told him, already sliding her hands around to look for more injuries on his person.

“Oh. Well, it’s difficult to – John, stop her manhandling me.” Sherlock rolled up a little. He was so trim and slender that, without the voluminous coat, he looked long and rather delicate.

He was losing a lot of blood, now. “Sarah, call an ambulance.”

“I don’t want to be in an ambulance,” Sherlock told him. “Have Lestrade get a car – one without lights on the top and an orange stripe down the side.”

“I’ll get him up. You pressure the arm.” John suggested. “Elevators.”

“Hospital.”

Halfway across the office, Sherlock’s cell phone began to ring. Before they set in, John ran to retrieve it, shocked by how fast he could travel now that his blood was coursing full of adrenaline. Sherlock’s phone was a dangerous thing to leave lying about. He’d missed the call, but not the text. “Mycroft’s coming.”

Sarah had taken off her thin little belt and tied off a tourniquet. “Whatever was holding it, he’s got a good nick in the vein now. Could be a tear.” But as John circled the desk he saw she wasn’t talking to him. She was on with 999.

Lestrade hurried back toward them. His eyes widened when he saw Sherlock in a state of collapse, his blood making a red stain in the rug. “Donovan, get a car. We need a hospital!”

She glanced in his direction, irritation transformed to fear, and she bolted for the stairs.

Sherlock focussed on breathing, slowing his pulse. He opened his eyes when John turned him by his good shoulder and started to pivot him up. “Can you walk?”

“You are… nonsensical.” Sherlock said wanly. He gathered himself. John wasn’t sure where he found the resources, though he was sure it was, in some part, mind over matter, but Holmes made it to the elevator and into the car under his own power.

John got into the back right beside Sherlock. He was honestly surprised when Lestrade, with everything going on, chose to come along in the front passenger seat. Sarah, naturally, hurried in on Sherlock’s other side. Almost as soon as they set off, as if to spare him the humiliation of riding in a detested blaring police car, Sherlock slumped against John, utterly senseless. He stayed so, all the way to the hospital, in spite of John clapping his cheeks and trying to rouse him, and needed to be lifted out of the back and placed on a rolling stretcher to get inside the doors.

After they rushed him out of sight, John stood in the hallway shaking. He looked at his bloody hands and realized, physiologically, he was in intense distress. His heart raced. A sudden and irresistible replay of the first few minutes after the bullet had torn through his shoulder and lodged itself in his scapula burned through his mind. It left him gasping.

“John what’s happening?”

Sarah sounded far away.

He could scarcely hear her above his labouring heart, the smell of his blood, and the whir of tracer fire raking the air above him. Oh my God. He thought it very possible he was going to have a heart attack.

“John,” Sarah pushed through some of the smoke and began to take on a more solid shape as she caught his shoulders. “John?”

“I need to get this off.” He said breathlessly. “I need to get the blood off.”

“All right,” she said and made an appeal to Lestrade.

Moments later, John couldn’t stop his hands shaking as he scrubbed away Sherlock’s blood, and lathered his hands over and over.

“Does this… does this mean you don’t think he’ll make it?” Lestrade paced along the stalls. He ran his hand through his short steely hair.

John slowed down at last, and rinsed off again, shutting off the taps. He turned and dripped on the floor waiting for the so-called automatic towel dispenser to realize there was someone there. Then he looked at Lestrade’s tormented face. “So…. It would matter to you if he didn’t make it.”

“I’ve worked with him for five years. Yeah, it would bother me.” Lestrade capitulated. “How bad is his situation?”

“Bad enough to kill him,” John admitted to himself. He had to bow his head to conceal the storm of guilt and regret that played on his face. “He was stable until that last attack.”

“Yeah, Donovan’s beside herself.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“She didn’t mean to hurt him. She’s not a person for hurting people, just because they don’t get along, John. Do you believe that?”

Finally, John looked up at the man. “I… yes, I do. Accidents happen. When one is already weakened, one mishap can be one too far.”

“So you think he’ll make it?” Lestrade asked.

Now John huffed out air and smiled tiredly. “Yes. I do, actually. Sherlock’s a fighter…. What an odd thing to hear myself say. He’s so cerebral, you know? Shouldn’t cerebral people be weaklings, physically? Isn’t that the meme?”

“I suppose he missed that on TV.” Lestrade ran the tap to get the last of the soap out of the sink and sighed. “Got to get to work. Have a double shift.”

John checked the time and realized he would be due at the clinic, as would be Sarah, in under two hours. As they both stood in silent commiseration, Sherlock’s phone, still in John’s pocket, pinged. He took it out.

‘Sherlock, you are a nightmare. I will give you one opportunity to volunteer this information to me, and then, it’s by my methods. Where are you? -M’

Lestrade blinked. “Hard to believe he has a brother. Who could keep up with him?”

“Mycroft’s just as bad, in his own way.” John put away the phone, uncertain what to do about the message. “They both notice everything. Mycroft is just better at impulse control… or something. He’ll be waiting for you about this.”

“Leave him to me, then.” Lestrade nodded. “Go get some rest.”

Sarah paced the hall outside of the Men’s room. She too, smelled of hospital soap. Her eyes were red and watery. John wondered if that was from crying. She’s been under a lot of stress tonight. Maybe it would be better, for her, anyway, if she stopped being around him. She took his hand as soon as he came out and gave it a squeeze. “Do you want to stay, John? I’ll work your shift.”

“You’re exhausted too,” he told her. “I’ll just be underfoot here.”

Lestrade excused himself from this and strode down the hallway. Donovan stood just inside the doors and was visibly exhausted. Her face was stiff from repressing her feelings. After all, she hadn’t gotten as lucky as John. Her friend had never even made it to the hospital.

“We’ll cab it,” John said. “You can sleep on the way.” He held her hand on the way out the sliding doors to the lot beyond.

It took twenty four hours to get the bleeding under control, and forty eight for the infection.

Forty eight hours of undiluted hell for the doctors treating Sherlock.

He was bored. Horribly, ruthlessly bored. On day 3, John arrived at the room to find him strapped to the bed. Apparently, he’d been wandering the hospital ‘collecting samples’. They’d found him in the mortuary. He’d almost been arrested, or so Lestrade had told John by phone.

John glanced over Sherlock’s sour expression in the idyllic room – white sheets, sun gleaming through large windows, television at the ready. He had a private room, bound to be Mycroft’s doing.

“I suppose I should free you.”

Sherlock cast him a withering look and John hid his smile as he went to work freeing the man. Well, his hands anyway. What did sober him was noticing there were no flowers, no cards, and no mementos of any kind in the room. Sherlock bent and freed his legs on his own. John watched this curiously. Through the imperfectly tied back of his medical gown, Sherlock’s flesh was flushed pinker than he’d ever seen the man’s skin before.

“Has anyone been by?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock said moodily. “I wasn’t awake until 4AM; tranquillisers.”

“Yes, I spoke to the doctor about your excitability. I was worried it might interfere with your healing.” John checked his watch. It was 10 AM. “No one yet today then?”

“What excitability would that be, exactly? Or are you making the argument I’m not a passive clod like practically everyone else you speak to every day, and there’s something wrong with that?” He glanced up. “Because, I assure you, there is not. This is the Twilight Zone, and yes they do have pig snouts. I have no intention of running with swine. What did you bring me?”

Sherlock rustled through the collection of magazines that John had brought until he found the Economist, the Guardian, and New Scientist. “Ooh, superbugs. Good hospital reading.” Sherlock said and opened the New Scientist. He read the entire article as John got tea and brought out the breakfast he’d carried from the house – sandwiches and a tureen of soup made by Mrs. Hudson. She had actually cried when she found out Sherlock had been hurt.

John laid out bowls for them both on the rolling table that spanned the bed in which Sherlock sat. Sherlock put down the magazine and looked him over. “You have to stop sleeping on her sofa.”

It made John grin. “You have no idea how hard I’m working on that exact thing, Sherlock.”

This made his genius friend fall silent and peer around the room. He picked up his cell phone from the charger and started checking his text messages. He threw the phone down, peevishly.

“She’s all right, you know. Sarah.” John said as he poured the soup.

“I didn’t ask.” And then, “I think it would be a good idea if I checked myself out. I hate it here. They… they take all my samples.”

Hysterical. “They aren’t yours to sample to begin with,” John set out the sandwiches. “Case closed. Eat your soup.”

“I don’t want soup.”

John got up to check the IV and then walked to look through Sherlock’s charts. He glanced back at where Sherlock was fiddling with his soup spoon. “Sherlock, you want it. Don’t be difficult.”

“It smells good.”

“Yes, it does. Tomato and basil with rice, actually. Mrs. Hudson made it especially for you. She says you like it,” though John didn’t know about that. In his experience, Sherlock would eat anything after a case: pickles and peas; cheese and Cheerios; any- and everything. After a case, he was famished.

Sure enough, Sherlock set in on his bowl of soup and sandwiches in a childlike frenzy, still reading his way through New Scientist. “Need one of those.”

John didn’t even recognize the gadget that Sherlock was looking at.

“I’ll have Molly requisition one for her lab.” He decided.

“You’re horrible.” John chortled.

Sherlock looked up, boggled. “How is that not helpful?”

He fell into silence, inhaling his soup, and John went back to his charts again. Really, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get him on vitamin supplements during cases. His initial two blood-work results were not encouraging. “Your cholesterol is low.”

“Good thing.”

“Low as if you’re fasting.”

“Bad thing.”

John didn’t need anything more than that to understand he’d have to grind the vitamins up and put them in the man’s tea to get him to take them. That, or get him injections. Sherlock, unlike anyone else he’d ever met, seemed to have a natural attraction to needles.

“Lestrade hasn’t been by,” Sherlock said around his sandwich.

“Double shift. I imagine he’s busy dealing with Commander Snow about now, not to mention unearthing everything about this cover-up.” John sat on the edge of the bed and shoved his bowl of soup toward Sherlock. He couldn’t eat it seeing how ravenous Holmes was.

Sherlock glanced up before sticking his spoon in. “You’re sure?”

John nodded at him. “Have at it.”

John opened the curtains to a brilliant surge of sunlight. There you are, Sherlock: Vitamin D. “So they’re set to have Melody Doyle’s funeral this weekend. You’ve been invited. I don’t know if you’ll be feeling strong enough to call.”

“How dreary.” Sherlock threw his magazine down and went at the soup bowl with both spoons.

“Oh my God. And yet no mess. Shows practice, yes?”

Sherlock was too involved to respond, so John eased around the bed and lifted the sleeve of the hospital gown Sherlock wore. Sherlock was busy eating and didn’t care much about this. He paused to flick on the news and suck on his cardboard cup of tea happily. John knew that there had been some talk of surgery on this injury at first, because he’d kept calling the hospital. The doctors who had cut the bullet wound to investigate and to clean it properly and determined that no surgery would be needed. Sherlock couldn’t feel a thing in the wound now. It was deeply anesthetised, though John had warned against it. As soon as he’s feeling no pain from it, he’ll become… a handful.

They were regretting their Hippocratic Oaths right now.

Holmes dropped the channel changer and turned his head, his hair more a tousled mess of curls than ever before, due to his lying on it all day. His pale green eyes were mild in the sun, like chips of sea-glass Wedgwood. “How does it look?”

“Doing very well,” John settled into the chair beside the bed.

Sherlock glanced out the sunny window. “I want to leave. Can you arrange that?”

John thought about it for a moment. “Sherlock… I honestly don’t think you’re well enough.”

He looked down at the bedding. “Can you bring my violin?”

“Don’t torment them, Sherlock. This hospital is trying to help you.”

His lips quirked into a smile, “I can play, you know.”

“I’ve only ever seen you use that violin to drive off Mycroft. Oh – you’re sure he hasn’t been?” John asked. Surely his brother had been by to see him?

“No. Thankfully.” Sherlock licked a fingertip and turned back to the soup. With one spoon, clearly out of courtesy to present company.

John hid his dismay in setting out the pie that Sarah had sent over with him: pumpkin with whipped cream. Sherlock would make short work of that. Three times, now, he’d seen Sherlock eat something with pumpkin in it – a muffin; bread; and a slice of pie. It was a pattern. Already, Holmes had sped up his consumption of sandwiches and soup. John went out to bring back a larger tea for Sherlock. He’d already blown through the first John had bought. Poor beggar.

Holmes had tucked in to the pie. It had a substantial hole, dead centre. All the cream there was also M.I.A. He extended an arm for his tea.

“What was it about though?” he asked as he handed over the extra-large orange pekoe black with two sugars. “The murders?”

“Bad luck, if you happened to be the Janitor,” Sherlock opened plastic lid and sipped tea. “But if you were Jerry Ballard, this was about justice. Speaking of which, did you bring the mail like I asked?” He stabbed the pie and started in on another forkful.

“Oh yes, almost forgot.” John went in his pocket and laid out the letters on the bed. He held up a black one. “Here’s the invite from the Doyle’s family for-”

“Blue-silver gel pen on black paper,” Sherlock smiled a little. “Oh she’d like that.”

John laid it down before him. “Consider it. They might like to hear some of what you have to say about Melody, Sherlock.” He watched Sherlock sorting mail – he had a system – and then said. “Why is it you only meet suitable women after they’re goners?”

“What?” he paused what he was doing, which was chopping up the remaining pie and cream.

“Jennifer Wilson from A Study in Pink, who you described as really clever; Melody Doyle, who you said was bright and idiosyncratic. Do you know who else is clever, bright, and idiosyncratic?”

“Have you written the case up yet?” He asked.

“Yes,” John said. “But I haven’t published it. Waiting until after the funeral, and when the news dies down about this a bit. And… I haven’t got a title yet.”

“Then Snow is banging about calling it the Shower Slaying.” Sherlock chuckled. “Get on that.”

Sherlock finished his last crumb of pie and started reading through mail, quietly. Then a notion lit his face. “Did you want pie? I suppose I should have asked.”

“Sarah made two.” John assured him. “The other one is in the fridge at home. I’ve had some.”

“Excellent. Bring me the rest. And get her proper measuring cups and spoons. A household teaspoon or -cup is not sufficient to the job of measuring ingredients and baking proper-” Sherlock straightened suddenly, his brows going up for an instant. “I was right.”

“About?”

Sherlock opened the letter and took the folded contents out. They were impeccably hand written: two pages in tiny and exact script. “Jerry Ballard sent a letter.”

John got out of his chair and crossed to the bed. He snapped up the envelope and checked the return address. “No…. Really?”

“Open a window John.” Sherlock yanked the envelope back. “The brain needs oxygen.”

John didn’t mind, he cranked the window open. They were on a higher floor, and the sheer curtain immediately buckled and rippled in, reminding John of Sherlock’s coat. It was being dry-cleaned now. Blood had gotten into the lining. The breath of wind cleared away the antiseptic smell as hale London air, if that wasn’t an oxymoron, spilled into the room.

“I remember the outside,” Holmes sighed.

“Oh, stop. Now will you read it?” John was too tickled to contain his beaming grin.

“We’ll see how close I am,” Sherlock handed John the letter, “when I say the entire problem came to light when we exited the abandoned house in Brixton to find reporters on the scene.” He propped pillows behind him and curled up with his back against them. Sherlock drew his knees up under the wool blanket. The window was open, and John found the breeze and sun falling across Holmes’ curled form almost poetic. He’d shut his eyes: no less than a green-eyed cat, sunbathing.

With eight lives left.

John unfolded the letter. His glance was distracted by the slide of a shadow along the sunny hallway. Lestrade. John had called the man to ask if he’d had time to check on Sherlock’s condition the night before, explaining that he’d had to fill-in at the clinic these past days. But their jobs had kept them both away. Now he’d come. John was speechless. He hated to admit it, but he’d expected that no one would call, at all. The Detective Inspector stopped in the doorway as if not sure what to do. Sherlock doubtless noticed the arrival, but he didn’t open his eyes. Lestrade’s gaze lingered on the red line suspended in air, sloping from the bag to Sherlock’s forearm.

“It’s bad luck to loiter in doorways, Lestrade.” Sherlock said lazily. “And don’t all police have superstitious minds?” He half smiled.

“How’d you…” Lestrade gave his head a little shake and stepped inside. “How are you?”

Sherlock’s eyes popped open, his lips tightened, “John? If I’m distracted by one more triviality, I’m pulling this needle out and leaving.”

“Not bloody likely,” John told him sternly. “You won’t like life much if you leave here before you’ve had a chance for that arm to heal. The painkillers-”

Sherlock made an inarticulate groan. “Just stop. It’s like nails on a chalkboard. Don’t chime in with it. Don’t you have something slightly more interesting on hand?” He picked up a pair of hospital copies of Reader’s Digest and flung them out the window. Then he reloaded. “I’ve handed you over the letter-”

Lestrade nodded, “This is about what I expected.” He stepped up and wrenched the Digests right out of Sherlock’s hands. “Look, you, behave. You’re no use to me now, and God knows when another murder could happen.”

Sherlock froze for a moment and then settled back to the pillows. “John, read it to me.”

“Sorry. The letter has him agitated.” John glanced up at Lestrade and explained. “And the painkillers. They’re messing with his natural tendency to-”

Sherlock’s hands leapt up in air. “Listen, John, Jerry Ballard is dead. His last testimony in this world is in your hands. Painkillers, prognosis, none of it matters!”

“Jerry Ballard’s what?” Lestrade did a double-take. “Where did you get that?”

John looked down at the letter. A man had died to draft this. Maybe Sherlock, whose green eyes were lamp-bright with insistence now, had the right of it. John sat back on the chair and glanced up at Lestrade. “Sherlock found small cuts on Jerry Ballard’s hands. Paper cuts.”

“He was a writer,” Sherlock hugged himself, “As in correspondence on paper in longhand.”

“The conjecture was he’d written up the case and-”

“Has he?” Sherlock opened his eyes again. They looked nearly colourless in the light.

“-and sent it to Sherlock.” John finished.

Lestrade looked at the genius, agape. “You couldn’t tell me this?”

Sherlock made a small gesture with his hand. “Lestrade, your faith in me begins to permeate the entire branch. Isn’t that happy. Read the letter, John. I’m not timing you, but it’s been four minutes, twenty seconds.”

“You’d best read it,” Lestrade told the doctor. He pulled a second chair from the wall to the end of the bed and settled in it, setting his elbows on the tatty, narrow arms and joining his hands before him like a net.

Sherlock closed his eyes.

John began:

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I’m mindful you have no idea who I am; however, I’m well aware of who you are because I follow your blog. It’s why I’ve drafted this letter to you. I should apologize up front. It’s likely that I’m writing this rashly. However, the allegations are potentially disastrous for the branch, and that has my nerves acting on my wits. I’m sure such a thing would never happen to you. Lucidity is the blood in your veins – as your friend, John Watson wrote. If I waste your time with this, then accept my apology. However, some part of me can see there’s danger in the things I’ve learned.

My office is in Scotland Yard. I’ve had an alarming allegation from an officer here – a trusted Detective, in fact, a skillful and intelligent one – Melody Doyle. She tells me that, approximately three years ago, Martin White, with whom she has had failed affairs, brought her into a cabal of some kind. She deeply trusted him at the time. But that trust paled beside respect she held for the man in charge of this. She found her purpose as a ninth inside this band of eight-

Sherlock sat up straight, which attracted John’s attention and caused him to pause. Slowly, Holmes settled back and exhaled a soft breath. “I missed one.”

She found her purpose as a ninth inside this band of eight crooked police. All of them had been wronged in some way by the Met. Melody has talked to me on several occasions about the loss of her father. It’s a wound that has never healed for her. Likewise her family has never quite recovered. The circumstances of his death have been kept hush-hush. Monetary settlements were reached in exchange for the Doyle’s silence on the matter. Therefore the cabal was uniquely appealing to her. On the surface of things, her actions seemed justified.

Sherlock sighed and started rooting around under his pillow. “No, not justified – pure,” he muttered. “She felt pure… for a while.”

In fact, she thought herself a kind of champion for truth and full disclosure. Several media outlets competed for tips and information only the nine could provide. She claims their work made very powerful newspapers and TV News programmes millions of quid. They paid not insubstantial sums for specifics: snuck files; valuable criminal details; advanced access to crime scenes and evidence. There was no limit to her ingenuity in securing these sorts of things. Melody saw this as a way to avenge her father, the truth of whose death, she felt, would be ‘locked away’ from her ‘in some cabinet’, forever.

Most assuredly, John paused. Now she was dead.

She’s come to me, because she wants it to stop. The man whose idea this was has recently agreed to arrange for recorders to capture victim interviews. Funnily, this has a tie-in with the A Study in Pink (as Dr. Watson called that bit of brilliance). The estranged wife and children of the serial killer were among those who were to fall under surveillance. Melody says her world began to crumble around her. She could see no honour in the press tormenting half-grown children. But, in trying to stop this, she was threatened by the very man she’d come to see as a second father.

She now sees what she’s been doing, but she swears to me she’s too far in to get out intact. Melody believes she will die ending this. But there’s a steely core of determination in her, she won’t back out. I’ve agreed to take her to Lestrade in the morning. I feel there are people Melody would still like to protect: Kelly Carter, the Officer who she manipulated into working for her, and Wendy Harris, whom Melody says she has scrupulously insulated from detection, because Wendy is a very junior officer, and was nothing more than their messenger bird to take packages to the press.

“Hello.” Sherlock actually laughed in admiration. “She was well insulated, indeed. Good girl.”

John, however, found his gaze settling on Lestrade’s downcast face as he continued.

But if I take her to Lestrade, she will confess. Her respect for him has eclipsed that of the man who played upon her feelings of loss, and badly duped her. Melody is leaving to visit her mother and sister before morning, but I have a feeling she’s also debated warning the people she considers the victims of her revenge. I have told her not to do this, as it would put her at greater risk of discovery.

John stopped before reading the list of names. “Sherlock… how on earth? These are exactly the people you….” He stopped himself and glanced up at Holmes. He was rooting about in the drawer beside his bed, looking for something.

Well and good. Sherlock might have fished out eyeballs and John would have had to continue.

Please do what you can to safeguard her life. She is afraid she is being watched by her fellows, lately. They’ve noticed that she’s changing. Right now, she even has raw nerves for me because I know about this. I also ask you don’t discount this letter because of the source. I’m no Lestrade (but he might go by tomorrow to see you on this matter). It is sad you have no reason to trust the rest of us. There is a lot of talk around the office – I’m sure you’ve heard it. People mock you and ape your methods to make light of your intellect. They fear what they don’t understand. Thus, many of them swear you’re one kind of monster or another. Only there’s no evidence of this in your works. You’ve saved many lives by now. I know a troubled mind can yield untainted genius. Let this be enough to convince you of my genuineness, because I deeply fear for Melody Doyle from here.

Please respond.

Jerry Ballard

John looked up at Lestrade. The Detective Inspector’s face was grim. “Good man, Jerry Ballard.”

Holmes’ green gaze was aimed out at the blowing clouds. He sighed, tucked a cigarette in his lips and flicked a lighter under it. He inhaled the flame into the tube. John gawped.

“Where the devil did you get that?”

“This is a hospital, John.” Sherlock told him as if that should explain it.

Lestrade got to his feet and stretched. “I’m sure they won’t like you smoking in here. There are oxygen tanks and the like. Oxygen is highly flammable, you know.”

Sherlock just stared at the man. “Okay, to confirm… oxygen is highly flammable?”

“Well… yeah.”

“Go away, I can’t help you.” Sherlock ruffled his dark hair and breathed out smoke.

“I’m going for coffee,” Lestrade noted with some enjoyment. It seemed irritating flammable Sherlock was highly entertaining for him. “I’ll bring some back.”

“Black, two sugars.” Sherlock mumbled and picked up The Economist.

“Nothing for me,” John finished.

“And if you meet any school children along the way, ask them the difference between an oxidizer and a fuel.” Sherlock shouted after him. He took another draw on the cigarette, settled back in the pillows, and exhaled a soft plume of smoke. “Could you bring some nicotine patches?”

“You’re on sedatives and painkillers and you think I’m bringing you your patches?” John got up, reached out, and snatched the cigarette away.

“What a futile gesture. I have more.” Sherlock crossed his arms on his ribs and pursed his lips.

John put out the current cigarette in the aluminium pumpkin pie plate. “Give them.”

“Uh, no.” Sherlock gloated.

“I really don’t want to have the nurse come in here and strip the bedding.” John added. “And you.”

Sherlock sat up a little. His green eyes narrowed. It took him no time to determine that John was not joking. He pulled the packet out from under his pillows and gave it up. But he wasn’t happy about it.

Lestrade came back down the hall without the coffees.

“Why are you here?” Sherlock asked, accordingly.

“Almost forgot about this. Thought you’d like it back,” Lestrade took a small plastic bottle out of his pocket and set it on the table between the pie plate and demolished soup.

It was the bullet. John touched his left shoulder protectively. As often as he dreamt about it, he didn’t have the one that had struck him.

“Anderson gave it back to me this morning.” Lestrade said on his way to the door. “A large black coffee, two sugars, I assume?”

“Yes.” Sherlock picked up the bottle and peered into it almost affectionately. “Lestrade.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

 

~ End | Thanks for reading! ~

Please feel free to join John and Sherlock for further adventures here - [The Baker Street Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/16197) http://archiveofourown.org/series/16197


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